THE  WATERS 
•OF  EDERA- 


OUIDA 


The  Waters  of  Edera 


OF  CALIF.  LIBRARY,  LOS  1HGBLES 


THE 

WATERS  OF    EDERA 


BY 


OUIDA 

Author  of 
The  Messarenes,"   "Under  Two  Flags,"  Etc.,  Etc. 

I*    $***•*•£•£.,    L&u'isa-, 

-S 


NEW  YORK 

R.  F.  FENNO   &    COMPANY 

9  &   1 1    EAST   1 6rH  STREET 
1900 


COPYRIGHT,  1809. 
Br  LOUISE  DK  LA  RAMX. 


The  Waters  of  Edera 


The  Waters  of  Edera 


IT  was  a  country  of  wide  pastures,  of  moors 
covered  with  heath,  of  rock-born  streams  and 
rivulets,  of  forest  and  hill  and  dale,  sparsely  in- 
habited, with  the  sea  to  the  eastward  of  it,  un- 
seen, and  the  mountains  everywhere  visible 
always,  and  endlessly  changing  in  aspect. 

Herdsmen  and  shepherds  wandered  over  it,  and 
along  its  almost  disused  roads  pedlars  and  pack 
mules  passed  at  times  but  rarely.  Minerals  and 
marbles  were  under  its  turf,  but  none  sought  for 
them ;  pools  and  lakes  slept  in  it,  undisturbed,  save 
by  millions  of  water  fowl  and  their  pursuers.  The 
ruins  of  temples  and  palaces  were  overgrown  by 
its  wild  berries  and  wild  flowers.  The  buffalo 
browsed  where  emperors  had  feasted,  and  the  bit- 
tern winged  its  slow  flight  over  the  fields  of  for- 
gotten battles. 

It  was  the  season  when  the  flocks  are  brought 
through  this  lonely  land,  coming  from  the  plains 
to  the  hills.  Many  of  them  passed  on  their 

5 


2137562L 


6  The  Waters  of  Edera 

way  thus  along  the  course  of  the  Edera  water. 
The  shepherds,  clothed  in  goatskin,  with  the  hair 
worn  outward,  bearded,  brown,  hirsute  men, 
looking  like  savage  satyrs,  the  flocks  they  drove 
before  them  travel-worn,  lame,  heart-broken,  the 
lambs  and  kids  bleating  painfully.  They  cannot 
keep  up  with  the  pace  of  the  flock,  and,  when 
they  fall  behind,  the  shepherds  slit  their  throats, 
roast  their  bodies  over  an  evening  fire,  or  bake 
them  under  its  ashes,  and  eat  them;  if  a  town  or 
village  be  near,  the  little  corpses  are  sold  in  it. 
Often  a  sheep  dog  or  a  puppy  drops  down  in  the 
same  way,  footsore  and  worn  out;  then  the  shep- 
herds do  not  tarry  but  leave  the  creatures  to  their 
fate,  to  die  slowly  of  thirst  and  hunger. 

The  good  shepherd  is  a  false  phrase.  No  one 
is  more  brutal  than  a  shepherd.  If  he  were  not  so 
he  could  not  bear  his  life  for  a  day. 

All  that  he  does  is  brutal.  He  stones  the  flock 
where  it  would  tarry  against  his  will.  He  muti- 
lates the  males,  and  drags  the  females  away  from 
their  sucking  babes.  He  shears  their  fleeces 
every  spring,  unheeding  how  the  raw  skin  drops 
blood.  He  drives  the  halting,  footsore,  crippled 
animals  on  by  force  over  flint  and  slate  and  parch- 
ing dust.  Sometimes  he  makes  them  travel 
twenty  miles  a  day. 

For  his  pastime  he  sets  the  finest  of  his  beasts 
to  fight.  This  is  the  feast  day  and  holiday  sport 


The  Waters  of  Edera  7 

of  all  the  shepherds;  and  they  bet  on  it  until  all 
they  have,  which  is  but  little,  goes  on  the  heads  of 
the  rams;  and  one  will  wager  his  breeches,  and 
another  his  skin  jacket,  and  another  his  comely 
wife,  and  the  ram  which  is  beaten,  if  he  have  any 
life  left  in  him,  will  be  stabbed  in  the  throat  by 
his  owner :  for  he  is  considered  to  have  disgraced 
the  branca. 

This  Sunday  and  Saints'  day  sport  was  going 
on  on  a  piece  of  grass  land  in  the  district  known 
as  the  Vale  of  Edera. 

On  the  turf,  cleared  of  its  heaths  and  ferns, 
there  was  a  ring  of  men,  three  of  them  shepherds, 
the  rest  peasants.  In  the  midst  of  them  were  the 
rams,  two  chosen  beasts  pitted  against  each  other 
like  two  pugilists.  They  advanced  slowly  at  first, 
then  more  quickly,  and  yet  more  quickly,  till  they 
met  with  a  crash,  their  two  foreheads,  hard  as 
though  carven  in  stone,  coming  in  collision  with  a 
terrible  force;  then  each,  staggered  by  the  en- 
counter, drew  back  dizzy  and  bruised  to  recoil  and 
take  breath  and  gather  fresh  force,  and  so  charge 
one  on  the  other  in  successive  rounds  until  the 
weaker  should  succumb,  and,  mangled  and  sense- 
less, should  arise  no  more. 

One  of  the  rams  was  old,  and  one  was  young; 
some  of  the  shepherds  said  that  the  old  one  was 
more  wary  and  more  experienced,  and  would  have 
the  advantage;  in  strength  and  height  they  were 


8  The  Waters  of  Edera 

nearly  equal,  but  the  old  one  had  been  in  such 
duels  before  and  the  young  one  never.  The  young 
one  thought  he  had  but  to  rush  in,  head  down- 
ward, to  conquer;  the  old  one  knew  this  was 
not  enough  to  secure  victory.  The  young  one  was 
blind  with  ardour  and  impatience  for  the  fray ;  the 
old  one  was  cool  and  shrewd  and  could  parry  and 
wait. 

After  three  rounds  the  two  combatants  met  in  a 
final  shock;  the  elder  ram  butted  furiously,  the 
younger  staggered  and  failed  to  return  the  blow, 
his  frontal  bone  was  split,  and  he  fell  to  the 
ground ;  the  elder  struck  him  once,  twice,  thrice, 
amidst  the  uproarious  applause  of  his  backers; 
a  stream  of  blood  poured  from  his  skull,  which 
was  pounded  to  splinters;  a  terrible  convulsion 
shook  his  body  and  his  limbs;  he  stretched  his 
tongue  out  as  if  he  tried  to  lap  water;  the  men 
who  had  their  money  on  him  cursed  him  with 
every  curse  they  knew;  they  did  not  cut  his 
throat,  for  they  knew  he  was  as  good  as  dead. 

"  This  is  a  vile  thing  you  have  done,"  said  a  lit- 
tle beggar  girl  who  had  been  passing,  and  had 
been  arrested  by  the  horrible  fascination  of  the 
combat,  and  forced  against  her  will  to  stand  and 
watch  its  issue.  The  shepherds  jeered ;  those  who 
had  backed  the  victor  were  sponging  his  wounds 
beside  a  runlet  of  water  which  was  close  at  hand ; 


The  Waters  of  Edera  9 

those  who  had  lost  were  flinging  stones  on  the 
vanquished.  The  girl  knelt  down  by  the  dying 
ram  to  save  him  from  the  shower  of  stones;  she 
lifted  his  head  gently  upward,  and  tried  to  pour 
water  through  his  jaws  from  a  little  wooden  cup 
which  she  had  on  her,  and  which  she  had  filled  at 
the  river.  But  he  could  not  swallow ;  his  beauti- 
ful opaline  eyes  were  covered  with  film,  he  gasped 
painfully,  a  foam  of  blood  on  his  lips  and  a  stream 
of  blood  coursing  down  his  face ;  a  quiver  passed 
over  him  again;  then  his  head  rested  lifeless  on 
her  knees.  She  touched  his  shattered  horns,  his 
clotted  wool,  tenderly. 

"  Why  did  you  set  him  to  fight?  "  she  said  with 
an  indignation  which  choked  her  voice.  "  It  was 
vile.  He  was  younger  than  the  other  and  knew 
less." 

Those  who  had  won  laughed.  Those  who  had 
lost  cursed  him  again;  he  had  disgraced  his 
branca.  They  would  flay  him,  and  put  him  in  the 
cauldron  over  the  wood  fire,  and  would  curse  him 
even  whilst  they  picked  his  bones  for  a  white-liv- 
ered spawn  of  cowards ;  a  son  of  a  thrice-damned 
ewe. 

The  girl  knew  that  was  what  they  do. 
She  laid  his  battered  head  gently  down  upon 
the  turf,  and  poured  the  water  out  of  her  cup,  her 
eyes  were  blind  with  tears ;  she  could  not  give  him 


I  o  The  Waters  of  Edera 

back  his  young  life,  his  zest  in  his  pastoral  pleas- 
ures, his  joy  in  cropping  the  herbage,  his  rude 
loves,  his  merry  gambols,  his  sound  sleep,  his 
odorous  breath. 

He  had  died  to  amuse  and  excite  the  ugly  pas- 
sions of  men,  as,  as  if  he  had  lived  longer  he 
would,  in  the  end,  have  died  to  satisfy  their  ugly 
appetites. 

She  looked  at  his  corpse  with  compassion,  the 
tears  standing  in  her  eyes ;  then  she  turned  away, 
and  as  she  went  saw  that  her  poor  ragged  clothes 
were  splashed  here  and  there  with  blood,  and  that 
her  arms  and  hands  were  red  with  blood :  she  had 
not  thought  of  that  before ;  she  had  thought  only 
of  him.  The  shepherds  did  not  notice  her;  they 
were  quarrelling  violently  in  dispute  over  what 
had  been  lost  and  won,  thrusting  their  fingers  in 
each  other's  faces,  and  defiling  the  fair  calm  of  the 
day  with  filthy  oaths. 

The  girl  shrank  away  into  the  heather  with  the 
silent  swiftness  of  a  hare ;  now  that  she  had  lost 
the  stimulus  of  indignant  pity,  she  was  afraid  of 
these  brutes ;  if  the  whim  entered  into  them  they 
would  be  as  brutal  to  her  as  to  their  flock. 

Out  of  fear  of  them  she  did  not  descend  at  once 
to  the  river,  but  pushed  her  way  through  the 
sweet-smelling,  bee-haunted,  cross-leaved  heaths; 
she  could  hear  the  sound  of  the  water  on  her  right 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 1 

all  the  time  as  she  went.  She  knew  little  of  this 
country,  but  she  had  seen  the  Edera,  and  had 
crossed  it  farther  up  its  course  on  one  of  its  rough 
tree-bridges. 

When,  as  well  as  she  could  judge,  she  had  got 
half  a  mile  away  from  the  scene  of  the  rams'  com- 
bat, she  changed  her  course  and  went  to  the  right, 
directed  by  the  murmur  of  the  river.  It  was  slow 
walking  through  the  heath  and  gorse  which  grew 
above  her  head,  and  were  closely  woven  together, 
but  in  time  she  reached  shelving  ground,  and 
heard  the  song  of  the  river  louder  on  her  ear.  The 
heath  ceased  to  grow  within  a  few  yards  of  the 
stream  and  was  replaced  by  various  water  plants 
and  by  acacia  thickets;  she  slid  down  the  banks 
between  the  stems  and  alighted  on  her  bare  feet 
where  the  sand  was  soft  and  the  water-dock  grew 
thick.  She  looked  up  and  down  the  water,  there 
was  no  one  in  sight,  nothing  but  the  banks  rose- 
hued  with  the  bloom  of  the  heather,  and,  beyond 
the  opposite  shore,  in  the  distance,  the  tender  ame- 
thystine hues  of  the  mountains.  The  water  was 
generally  low,  leaving  the  stretches  of  sand  and  of 
shingle  visible,  but  it  was  still  deep  in  many  parts. 

She  stripped  herself  and  went  down  into  it,  and 
washed  the  blood  which  had  by  this  time  caked 
upon  her  flesh.  It  seemed  a  pity  she  thought  to 
sully  with  that  dusky  stain  this  pure,  bright,  shin- 


1 2  The  Waters  of  Edera 

ing  stream;  but  she  had  no  other  way  to  rid  her- 
self of  it,  and  she  had  in  all  the  world  no  other 
clothes  than  these  poor  woollen  rags. 

Her  heart  was  still  sore  for  the  fate  of  the  con- 
quered ram;  and  her  eyes  filled  again  with  tears 
as  she  washed  his  blood  off  her  in  the  gay  running 
current.  But  the  water  was  soothing  and  fresh, 
the  sun  shone  on  its  bright  surface ;  the  comf rey 
and  fig-wart  blew  in  the  breeze,  the  heather  smell 
filled  the  atmosphere. 

She  was  only  a  child  and  her  spirits  rose,  and 
she  capered  about  in  the  shallows,  and  flung  the 
water  over  her  head,  and  danced  to  her  own  re- 
flection in  it,  and  forgot  her  sorrow.  Then  she 
washed  her  petticoats  as  well  as  she  could,  having 
nothing  but  water  alone,  and  all  the  while  she  was 
as  naked  as  a  Naiad,  and  the  sun  smiled  on  her 
brown,  thin,  childish  body  as  it  smiled  on  a  stem 
of  plaintain  or  on  the  plumage  of  a  coot. 

Then  when  she  had  washed  her  skirt  she  spread 
it  out  on  the  sand  to  dry,  and  sat  down  beside  it 
for  the  heat  to  bake  her  limbs  after  her  long  bath. 
There  was  no  one,  and  there  was  noth- 
ing, in  sight;  if  any  came  near  she  could 
hide  under  the  great  dock  leaves  until  such 
should  have  passed.  It  was  high  noon, 
and  the  skirt  of  wool  and  the  skirt  of  hemp 
grew  hot  and  steamed  under  the  vertical  rays ;  she 
was  soon  as  dry  as  the  shingles  from  which  the 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 3 

water  had  receded  for  months.  She  sat  with  her 
hands  clasped  round  her  updrawn  knees,  and  her 
head  grew  heavy  with  the  want  of  slumber,  but 
she  would  not  sleep,  though  it  was  the  hour  of 
sleep.  Some  one  might  pass  by  and  steal  her 
clothes  she  thought,  and  how  or  when  would  she 
ever  get  others? 

When  the  skirt  was  quite  dried,  the  blood  stains 
still  showed  on  it;  they  were  no  longer  red,  but 
looked  like  the  marks  from  the  sand.  She  tied  it 
on  round  her  waist  and  her  shirt  over  it,  and 
wound  an  old  crimson  sash  round  both.  Then  she 
took  up  her  little  bundle  in  which  were  the  wooden 
cup  and  a  broken  comb,  and  some  pieces  of 
hempen  cloth  and  a  small  loaf  of  maize  bread,  and 
went  on  along  the  water,  wading  and  hopping  in 
it,  as  the  water- wagtails  did,  jumping  from  stone 
to  stone  and  sinking  sometimes  up  to  her  knees  in 
a  hole. 

She  had  no  idea  where  she  would  rest  at  night, 
or  where  she  would  get  anything  to  eat ;  but  that 
reflection  scarcely  weighed  on  her;  she  slept  well 
enough  under  stacks  or  in  outhouses,  and  she  was 
used  to  hunger.  So  long  as  no  one  meddled  with 
her  she  was  content.  The  weather  was  fine  and 
the  country  was  quiet.  Only  she  was  sorry  for 
the  dead  ram.  By  this  time  they  would  have 
hung  him  up  by  his  heels  to  a  tree  and  have  pulled 
his  skin  off  his  body. 


14  The  Waters  of  Edera 

She  was  sorry ;  but  she  jumped  along  merrily  in 
the  water,  as  a  kingfisher  does,  and  scarcely  even 
wondered  where  its  course  would  lead  her. 

At  a  bend  in  it  she  came  to  a  spot  where  a 
young  man  was  seated  amongst  the  bulrushes, 
watching  his  fishing  net. 

"Aie !  "  she  cried  with  a  shrill  cry  of  alarm  like 
a  bird  who  sees  a  fowler.  She  stopped  short  in 
her  progress;  the  water  at  that  moment  was  up  to 
her  knees.  With  both  hands  she  held  up  her  petti- 
coat to  save  it  from  another  wetting;  her  little 
bundle  was  balanced  on  her  head,  the  light  shone 
in  her  great  brown  eyes.  The  youth  turned  and 
saw  her. 

She  was  a  very  young  girl,  thirteen  at  most; 
her  small  flat  breasts  were  still  those  of  a  child, 
her  narrow  shoulders  and  her  narrow  loins  spoke 
of  scanty  food  and  privation  of  all  kinds,  and  her 
arms  and  legs  were  brown  from  the  play  of  the 
sun  on  their  nakedness;  they  were  little  else  than 
skin  and  bone,  nerves  and  sinew,  and  looked  like 
stakes  of  wood.  All  the  veins  and  muscles  stood 
revealed  as  in  anatomy,  and  her  face,  which 
would  have  been  a  child's  face,  a  nymph's  face, 
with  level  brows,  a  pure,  straight  profile,  and 
small  close  ears  like  shells,  was  so  fleshless  and  so 
sunburnt  that  she  looked  almost  like  a  mummy. 
Her  black  eyes  had  in  them  the  surprise  and  sad- 
ness of  those  of  a  weaning  calf's;  and  her  hairt 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 5 

too  abundant  for  so  small  a  head,  would,  had  it 
not  been  so  dusty  and  entangled,  have  been  of  a 
red  golden  brown,  the  hue  of  a  chestnut  which 
has  just  burst  open  its  green  husk. 

"  Who  are  you  ?  "  said  the  young  man,  looking 
at  her  in  surprise. 

"  I  am  Nerina,"  answered  the  child. 

"  Where  do  you  come  from  ?  What  is  your 
country?  " 

She  pointed  vaguely  to  the  south-west  moun- 
tains, where  the  snow  on  the  upper  ranges  was 
lying  with  bands  of  cloud  resting  on  it. 

"From  the  Abruzzi?" 

She  was  silent.  She  did  not  know  the  moun- 
tains of  her  birthplace  by  their  name. 

"  Who  was  your  father  ?  "  he  asked,  with  some 
impatience. 

"  He  was  Black  Fausto." 

"  What  did  he  do  for  a  living?  " 

"  He  went  down  with  the  fair  season  to  the  Ro- 
man plain." 

He  understood:  the  man  had  no  doubt  been 
a  labourer,  one  of  those  who  descend  in  bands 
from  the  villages  of  the  Abruzzi  heights  to 
plough,  and  mow,  and  sow,  and  reap,  on  the  lands 
of  the  Castelli  Romani ;  men  who  work  in  droves, 
and  are  fed  and  stalled  in  droves,  as  cattle  are, 
who  work  all  through  the  longest  and  hottest  days 
in  summer,  and  in  the  worst  storms  of  winter; 


1 6  The  Waters  of  Edera 

men  who  are  black  by  the  sun,  are  half  naked, 
are  lean  and  hairy  and  drip  with  continual  sweat, 
but  who  take  faithfully  back  the  small  wage  they 
receive  to  where  their  women  and  children  dwell 
in  their  mountain-villages. 

"  He  went,  you  say  ?  Is  he  ill.  Does  he  work 
no  longer  ?  " 

"  He  died  last  year." 

"Of  what?" 

She  gave  a  hopeless  gesture.  "  Who  knows  ? 
He  came  back  with  a  wolf  in  his  belly,  he  said,  al- 
ways gnawing  and  griping,  and  he  drank  water 
all  day  and  all  night,  and  his  face  burned,  and  his 
legs  were  cold,  and  all  of  a  sudden  his  jaw  fell, 
and  he  spoke  no  more  to  us.  There  are  many  of 
them  who  die  like  that  after  a  hot  season  down  in 
the  plains." 

He  understood;  hunger  and  heat,  foul  air  in 
their  sleeping  places,  infusoria  in  the  ditch  and 
rain  water,  and  excessive  toil  in  the  extremes  of 
heat  and  cold  make  gaps  in  the  ranks  of  "these 
hired  bands  every  year  as  if  a  cannon  had  been 
fired  into  them. 

"  Who  takes  care  of  you  now  ?  "  he  asked  with 
pity,  as  for  a  homeless  bitch. 

"  Nobody.  There  is  nobody.  They  are  all  gone 
down  into  the  earth." 

"  But  how  do  you  live?  " 

"I  work  when -I  can.     I  beg  when  I  cannot. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  17 

People  let  me  sleep  in  the  stalls,  or  the  barns,  and 
give  me  bread." 

"  That  is  a  bad  life  for  a  girl." 

She  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"  I  did  not  make  it." 

"  And  where  are  you  going?  " 

She  opened  her  arms  wide  and  swept  the  air 
with  them. 

"Anywhere.  Along  the  water,  until  I  find 
something  to  do." 

"  I  cannot  do  much,"  she  added,  after  a  pause. 
"  I  am  little,  and  no  one  has  taught  me.  But  I 
can  cut  grass  and  card  wool." 

"  The  grass  season  is  short,  and  the  wool  sea- 
son is  far  off.  Why  did  you  not  stay  in  your  vil- 
lage?" 

She  was  mute.  She  did  not  know  why  she  had 
left  it,  she  had  come  away  down  the  mountain- 
side on  a  wandering  instinct,  with  a  vague  idea  of 
finding  something  better  the  farther  she  went :  her 
father  had  always  come  back  with  silver  pieces  in 
his  pocket  after  his  stay  down  there  in  those  lands 
which  she  had  never  seen,  lying  as  they  did  down 
far  below  under  the  golden  haze  of  what  seemed 
an  immeasurable  distance. 

"  Are  you  not  hungry  ?  "  said  the  fisher. 

"  I  am  always  hungry,"  she  said,  with  some  as- 
tonishment at  so  simple  a  question.  "  I  have  been 
hungry  ever  since  I  can  remember.  We  all  were 


1 8  The  Waters  of  Edera 

up  there.  Sometimes  even  the  grass  was  too  dried 
up  to  eat.  Father  used  to  bring  home  with  him  a 
sack  of  maize;  it  was  better  so  long  as  that 
lasted." 

"  Are  you  hungry  now  ?  " 

"  Of  course." 

"  Come  to  my  house  with  me.  We  will  feed 
you.  Come.  Have  no  fear.  I  am  Adone  Alba, 
of  the  Terra  Vergine,  and  my  mother  is  a  kind 
woman.  She  will  not  grudge  you  a  meal." 

The  child  laughed  all  over  her  thin,  brown  face. 

"  That  will  be  good,"  she  said,  and  leapt  up  out 
of  the  water. 

"  Poor  soul !  Poor  little  soul !  "  thought  the 
young  man,  with  a  profound  sense  of  pity. 

As  the  child  sprang  up  out  of  the  river,  shaking 
the  water  off  her  as  a  little  terrier  does,  he  saw 
that  she  must  have  been  in  great  want  of  food  for 
a  long  time;  her  bones  were  almost  through  her 
skin.  He  set  his  fishing  pole  more  firmly  in  the 
ground,  and  left  the  net  sunk  some  half  a  yard  be- 
low the  surface;  then  he  said  to  the  little  girl: 
"  Come,  come  and  break  your  fast.  It  has  lasted 
long,  I  fear." 

Nerina  only  understood  that  she  was  to  be  fed ; 
that  was  enough  for  her.  She  trotted  like  a  stray 
cur,  beckoned  by  a  benevolent  hand,  behind  him  as 
he  went,  first  through  some  heather  and  broom, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 9 

then  over  some  grass,  where  huge  olive  trees 
grew,  and  then  through  corn  and  vine  lands,  to 
an  old  farmhouse,  made  of  timber  and  stone; 
large,  long,  solid;  built  to  resist  robbers  in  days 
when  robbers  came  in  armed  gangs.  There  was  a 
wild  garden  in  front  of  it,  full  of  cabbage  roses, 
lavender,  myrtle,  stocks,  and  wallflowers.  Over 
the  arched  door  a  four-season  rose-tree  clambered. 

The  house,  ancient  and  spacious,  with  its  high- 
pitched  roof  of  ruddy  tiles,  impressed  Nerina  with 
a  sense  of  awe,  almost  of  terror.  She  remained 
hesitating  on  the  garden  path,  where  white  and 
red  stocks  were  blossoming. 

"  Mother,"  said  Adone,  "  Here  is  a  hungry 
child.  Give  her,  in  your  kindness,  some  broth  and 
bread." 

Clelia  Alba  came  out  into  the  entrance,  and  saw 
the  little  girl  with  some  displeasure.  She  was 
kind  and  charitable,  but  she  did  not  love  beggars 
and  vagabonds,  and  this  half-naked  female  tatter- 
demalion offended  her  sense  of  decency  and  pro- 
bity, and  her  pride  of  sex.  She  was  herself  a 
stately  and  handsome  woman. 

"  The  child  is  famished,"  said  Adone,  seeing  his 
mother's  displeasure. 

*'  She  shall  eat  then,  but  let  her  eat  outside," 
said  Clelia  Alba,  and  went  back  into  the  kitchen. 

Nerina  waited  by  the  threshold  timid  and  mute 


20  The  Waters  of  Edera 

and  humble,  like  a  lost  dog,  her  eyes  alone  ex- 
pressed overwhelming  emotions^  fear  and  hope, 
and  one  ungovernable  appetite,  hunger. 

Clelia  Alba  came  out  in  a  few  minutes  with  a 
bowl  of  hot  broth  made  of  herbs,  and  a  large  piece 
of  maize-flour  bread. 

"  Take  them,"  she  said  to  her  son. 

Adone  took  them  from  her,  and  gave  them  to 
the  child. 

"  Sit  and  eat  here,"  he  said,  pointing  to  a  stone- 
settle  by  the  wall  under  the  rose  of  four  seasons. 

The  hands  of  Nerina  trembled  with  excitement, 
her  eyes  looked  on  fire,  her  lips  shook,  her  breath 
came  feverishly  and  fast.  The  smell  of  the  soup 
made  her  feel  beside  herself.  She  said  nothing, 
but  seized  the  food  and  began  to  drink  the  good 
herb-broth  with  thirsty  eagerness  though  the 
steam  of  it  scorched  her. 

Adone,  with  an  instinct  of  compassion  and  deli- 
cacy, left  her  unwatched  and  went  within. 

"  Where  did  you  find  that  scarecrow?  "  asked 
his  mother. 

"  Down  by  the  river.  She  has  nobody  and 
nothing.  She  comes  from  the  mountains." 

"  There  are  poor  folks  enough  in  Ruscino  with- 
out adding  to  them  from  without,"  said  Clelia 
Alba  impatiently.  "  Mind  she  does  not  rob  the 
fowl-house  before  she  slips  away." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  2 1 

"  She  has  honest  eyes,"  said  Adone,  "  I  am  sure 
she  will  do  us  no  harm." 

When  he  thought  that  she  had  been  given  time 
enough  to  finish  her  food  he  went  out;  the  child 
was  stretched  at  full  length  on  the  stone  seat,  and 
was  already  sound  asleep,  lying  on  her  back;  the 
empty  bowl  was  on  the  ground,  of  the  bread  there 
was  no  longer  a  crumb;  she  was  sleeping  peace- 
fully, profoundly,  her  thin  hands  crossed  on  her 
naked  brown  bosom,  on  which  some  rose  leaves 
had  fallen  from  the  rose  on  the  wall  above. 

He  looked  at  her  in  silence  for  a  little  while, 
then  returned  to  his  mother. 

"  She  is  tired.     She  sleeps.     Let  her  rest." 

"  It  is  unsafe." 

"  How  unsafe,  mother?     She  is  only  a  child." 

"  She  may  have  men  behind  her." 

"  It  is  not  likely." 

Adone  could  not  say  (for  he  had  no  idea  him- 
self) why  he  felt  sure  that  this  miserable  little 
waif  would  not  abuse  hospitality :  "  She  is  a 
child,"  he  answered  rather  stupidly,  for  children 
are  often  treacherous  and  wicked,  and  he  knew 
nothing  of  this  one  except  what  she  had  chosen  to 
tell  of  herself. 

"  She  may  have  men  behind  her,"  repeated  his 
mother. 

"  Such  men  as  you  are  thinking  of  mother,  do 


22  The  Waters  of  Edera 

not  come  to  this  valley  nowadays.  Ulisse  Ferrero 
was  the  last  of  them.  Indeed,  I  think  this  poor 
little  creature  is  all  alone  in  the  world.  Go  and 
look  at  her.  You  will  see  how  forlorn  and  small 
she  is." 

She  went  to  the  doorway  and  looked  at  the 
sleeping  beggar;  her  eyes  softened  as  she  gazed, 
the  whole  attitude  and  appearance  of  the  child 
were  so  miserable  and  so  innocent,  so  helpless, 
and  yet  so  tranquil,  that  her  maternal  heart  was 
touched;  the  waif  slept  on  the  stone  bench  beside 
the  door  of  strangers  as  though  she  were  in  some 
safe  and  happy  home. 

Clelia  Alba  looked  down  on  her  a  few  mo- 
ments, then  took  the  kerchief  off  her  hair,  and  laid 
it  gently  without  awakening  the  sleeper  over  the 
breast  and  the  face  of  the  child,  on  which  flies 
were  settling  and  the  sun  was  shining. 

Then  she  picked  up  the  empty  earthenware 
bowl,  and  went  indoors  again. 

"  I  will  go  back  to  the  river,"  said  Adone.  "  I 
have  left  the  net  there." 

His  mother  nodded  assent. 

"  You  will  not  send  this  little  foreigner  away 
till  I  return  ?  "  he  asked.  Every  one  was  a  for- 
eigner who  had  not  been  born  in  the  vale  of 
Edera. 

"  No ;  not  till  you  return." 

He    went    away    through    the    sunshine  and 


The  Waters  of  Edera  23 

shadow  of  the  olive-trees.  He  knew  that  his 
mother  never  broke  her  word.  But  she  thought 
as  she  washed  the  bowl :  "  A  little  stray  mongrel 
bitch  like  that  may  bite  badly  some  day.  She  must 
go.  She  is  nothing  now ;  but,  by  and  by  she  may 
bite." 

Clelia  Alba  knew  human  nature,  though  she 
had  never  been  out  of  sight  of  the  river  Edera. 
She  took  her  spinning-wheel  and  sat  down  by  the 
door.  There  was  nothing  urgent  to  do,  and  she 
could  from  the  threshold  keep  a  watch  on  the  lit- 
tle vagabond,  and  would  be  aware  if  she  awoke. 
All  around  was  quiet.  She  could  see  up  and  down 
the  valley,  beyond  the  thin,  silvery  foliage  of  the 
great  olive-trees,  and  across  it  to  where  the  ruins 
of  a  great  fortress  towered  in  their  tragic  help- 
lessness. The  sun  shone  upon  her  fields  of  young 
wheat,  her  slopes  of  pasture.  The  cherry-trees 
and  the  pear-trees  were  in  bloom,  her  trellised 
vines  running  from  tree  to  tree.  Ragged-robin, 
yellow  crowsfoot,  purple  orchis,  filled  the  grass 
intermixed  with  the  blue  of  borage  and  the  white 
and  gold  of  the  oxeye.  She  did  not  note  these 
things.  Those  fancies  were  for  her  son.  Herself, 
she  would  have  preferred  that  there  should  be  no 
flower  in  the  grasses,  for  before  the  cow  was  fed 
the  flowers  had  to  be  picked  out  of  the  cut  grass 
and  had  served  no  good  end  that  she  could  per- 
ceive, for  she  knew  of  no  bees  except  the  wild  ones 


24  The  Waters  of  Edera 

whose  honey  no  one  ever  tasted,  hidden  from 
sight  in  hollow  trees  as  it  was. 

Nerina  slept  on  in  peace  and  without  dreams. 
Now  and  then  another  rose  let  fall  some  petals 
on  her,  or  a  bee  buzzed  above  her,  but  her  repose 
remained  undisturbed.  The  good  food  filled  her, 
even  in  her  sleep,  with  deep  contentment,  and 
the  brain,  well  nourished  by  the  blood,  was  still. 

Clelia  Alba  felt  her  heart  soften  despite  herself 
for  this  lonely  creature;  though  she  was  always 
suspicious  of  her,  for  she  had  never  known  any 
good  thing  come  down  from  the  high  mountains, 
but  only  theft  and  arson  and  murder,  and  men 
banded  together  to  solace  their  poverty  with 
crime.  In  her  youth  the  great  brigands  of  the 
Upper  Abruzzi  had  been  names  of  terror  in  Rus- 
cino,  and  in  the  hamlets  lying  along  the  course  of 
the  Edera,  and  many  a  time  a  letter  written  in 
blood  had  been  fastened  with  a  dagger  to  the  door 
of  church  or  cottage,  intimating  the  will  of 
the  unseen  chief  to  the  subjugated  population.  Of 
late  years  less  had  been  heard  and  seen  of  such 
men;  but  they  or  their  like  were  still  heard  and 
felt  sometimes,  up  above  in  lonely  forests,  or 
down  where  the  moorland  and  macchia  met,  and 
the  water  of  Edera  ran  deep  and  lonely.  In  her 
girlhood,  a  father,  a  son,  and  a  grandson  had 
been  all  killed  on  a  lonely  part  of  the  higher  val- 
ley because  they  had  dared  to  occupy  a  farm  and  a 


The  Waters  of  Edera  25 

water-mill  after  one  of  these  hillmen  had  laid 
down  the  law  that  no  one  was  to  live  on  the  land 
or  to  set  the  water-wheel  moving. 

That  had  been  a  good  way  off,  indeed,  and  for 
many  a  year  the  valley  of  Edera  had  not  seen  the 
masked  men,  with  their  belts,  crammed  with  arms 
and  gold,  round  their  loins;  but  still,  one  never 
knew,  she  thought;  unbidden  guests  were  oftener 
devils  than  angels. 

And  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  child  could  not 
really  be  asleep  all  this  time  in  a  strange  place  and 
in  the  open  air.  At  last  she  got  up,  went  again  to 
the  bench  and  drew  her  handkerchief  aside,  and 
looked  down  on  the  sleeper;  on  the  thin,  narrow 
chest,  the  small,  bony  hands,  the  tiny  virginal 
nipples  like  wood  strawberries. 

She  saw  that  the  slumber  was  real,  the  girl  very 
young  and  more  than  half-starved.  "  Let  her  for- 
get while  she  can,"  she  thought,  and  covered  her 
face  again.  "  It  is  still  early  in  the  day." 

The  bees  hummed  on ;  a  low  wind  swept  over  a 
full-blown  rose  and  shook  its  loose  leaves  to  the 
ground.  The  shadow  from  the  ruined  tower  be- 
gan to  touch  the  field  which  lay  nearest  the  river, 
a  sign  that  it  was  two  hours  after  noon. 


II 

THE  large  square  fresh-water  fishing-net  had 
sunk  under  the  surface,  the  canes  which  framed 
it  were  out  of  sight;  only  the  great  central  pole, 
which  sustained  the  whole,  and  was  planted  in  the 
ground  of  the  river-bank,  remained  visible  as  it 
bent  and  swayed  but  did  not  yield  or  break.  Such 
nets  as  this  had  been  washed  by  the  clear  green 
waters  of  the  pools  and  torrents  of  the  Edera  ever 
since  the  days  of  Etruscan  gods  and  Latin  au- 
gurs ;  religions  had  changed,  but  the  river,  and  the 
ways  of  the  men  of  the  river  had  not  altered. 

Adone  did  not  touch  it,  for  it  was  well  where  it 
was ;  he  seated  himself  on  the  bank  ready  to  seize 
and  hold  it  if  its  pole  showed  any  sign  of  yielding 
and  giving  way  and  heeling  over  into  the  stream. 
He  sat  thus  amongst  the  bulrushes  for  many  an 
hour,  on  many  a  spring  day  and  summer  night. 
Although  fish  were  not  numerous  he  never  tired 
of  his  vigil,  lulled  by  the  sound  of  the  current  as 
it  splashed  among  the  stones  and  rippled  through 
the  rushes ;  a  deeper  music  coming  from  its  higher 
reaches  where  it  fell  over  a  ledge  of  rock  and 
leapt  like  a  live  thing  into  the  air.  And,  indeed, 
what  thing  could  be  more  living  than  this  fresh, 
26 


The  Waters  of  Edera  27 

pure,  untroubled  water,  glad  as  a  child,  swift  as  a 
swallow,  singing  for  sport,  as  a  happy  boy  sings, 
as  it  ran  down  on  its  way  from  the  hills  ? 

To  the  young  man  sitting  now  on  its  bank 
amidst  the  bulrushes  it  was  as  living  as  himself, 
his  playmate,  friend,  and  master,  all  in  one.  First 
of  all  things  which  he  could  remember  were  the 
brightness  and  the  coolness  of  it  as  it  had  laved  his 
limbs  in  his  childhood  on  midsummer  noons,  his 
mother's  hands  holding  him  safely  as  he  waded 
with  rosy  feet  and  uncertain  steps  along  its  pebbly 
bottom!  How  many  mornings,  when  he  had 
grown  to  boyhood  and  to  manhood,  had  he  es- 
caped from  the  rays  of  the  vertical  sun  into  its 
acacia-shadowed  pools ;  how  many  moonlit,  balmy 
nights  had  he  bathed  in  its  still  reaches,  the  liquid 
silver  of  its  surface  breaking  up  like  molten  metal 
as  he  dived!  How  many  hours  of  peace  had  he 
passed,  as  he  was  spending  this,  waiting  for  the 
fish  to  float  into  his  great  net,  whilst  the  air  and 
the  water  were  alike  so  still  that  he  could  hear  the 
little  voles  stealing  in  and  out  amongst  the  reeds, 
and  the  water-thrush  pushing  the  pebbles  on  its 
sands  in  search  for  insects,  though  beast  and  bird 
were  both  unseen  by  him!  How  many  a  time 
upon  the  dawn  of  a  holy-day  had  he  washed  and 
swam  in  its  waters  whilst  the  bells  of  the  old 
church  in  the  village  above  had  tolled  in  the  soft- 
ness of  dusk ! 


28  The  Waters  of  Edera 

He  thought  of  none  of  these  memories  dis- 
tinctly, for  he  was  young  and  contented,  and  those 
who  are  satisfied  with  their  lot  live  in  their  pres- 
ent ;  but  they  all  drifted  vaguely  through  his  mind 
as  he  sat  by  the  side  of  the  river,  as  the  memories 
of  friends  dear  from  infancy  drift  through  our 
waking  dreams. 

He  was  in  every  way  a  son  of  the  Edera,  for  he 
had  been  born  almost  in  the  water  itself,  for  his 
mother  had  been  washing  linen  with  other  women 
at  the  ford  when  she  had  been  taken  with  the 
pains  of  labour  two  months  before  her  time.  Her 
companions  had  had  no  time  or  thought  to  do 
more  than  to  stretch  her  on  the  wet  sand,  with 
some  hempen  sheets,  which  had  not  yet  been 
thrown  in  the  water,  between  her  and  the  ground ; 
and  the  cries  of  her  in  her  travail  had  echoed  over 
the  stream  and  had  startled  the  kingfishers  in  the 
osiers,  and  the  wild  ducks  in  the  marshes,  and  the 
tawny  owls  asleep  in  the  belfry  tower  of  the  vil- 
lage. But  her  pains  had  been  brief  though  sharp, 
and  her  son  had  first  seen  the  light  beside  the 
water ;  a  strong  and  healthy  child,  none  the  worse 
for  his  too  early  advent,  and  the  rough  river- 
women  had  dipped  him  in  the  shallows,  where 
their  linen  and  their  wooden  beaters  were,  and 
had  wrapped  him  up  in  a  soiled  woollen  shirt,  and 
had  laid  him  down  with  his  face  on  his  mother's 
young  breast,  opening  his  shut  unconscious  mouth 


The  Waters  of  Edera  29 

with  their  rough  fingers,  and  crying  in  his  deaf 
ear,  "  Suck!  and  grow  to  be  a  man!  " 

Clelia  Alba  was  now  a  woman  of  forty-one 
years  old,  and  he,  her  only  son,  was  twenty- four ; 
they  had  named  him  Adone;  the  beautiful  Greek 
Adonais  having  passed  into  the  number  of  the 
saints  of  the  Latin  Church,  by  a  transition  so  fre- 
quent in  hagiology  that  its  strangeness  is  not  re- 
membered save  by  a  scholar  here  and  there.  When 
he  had  been  born  she  had  been  a  young  creature  of 
seventeen,  with  the  wild  grace  of  a  forest  doe, 
with  that  nobility  of  beauty,  that  purity  of  outline, 
and  that  harmony  of  structure,  which  still  exist  in 
those  Italians  in  whom  the  pure  Italiote  blood  is 
undefiled  by  Jew  or  Gentile.  Now  her  abundant 
hair  was  white,  and  her  features  were  bronzed  and 
lined  by  open-air  work,  and  her  hands  of  beautiful 
shape  were  hard  as  horn  through  working  in  the 
fields.  She  looked  an  old  woman,  and  was 
thought  so  by  others,  and  thought  herself  so :  for 
youth  is  soon  over  in  these  parts,  and  there  is  no 
half-way  house  between  youth  and  age  for  the 
peasant. 

Clelia  Alba,  moreover,  had  lost  her  youth 
earlier  even  than  others :  lost  it  forever  when  her 
husband  at  five-and-twenty  years  of  age  had  been 
killed  by  falling  from  an  olive-tree  of  which  the 
branch  sustaining  him  had  cracked  and  broken 
under  his  weight.  His  neck  had  been  broken  in 


$0  The  Waters  of  Edera 

the  fall.  She  had  been  dancing  and  shouting  with 
her  two-year-old  child  on  the  grassland  not  far 
off,  romping  and  playing  ball  with  some  dropped 
chestnuts ;  and  when  their  play  was  over  she  had 
lifted  her  boy  on  to  her  shoulder  and  run  with 
him  to  find  his  father.  Under  one  of  the  great, 
gnarled,  wide-spreading  olives  she  had  seen  him, 
lying  asleep  as  she  thought. 

"  Oh,  lazy  one,  awake !  The  sun  is  only  two 
hours  old !"  she  had  cried  merrily,  and  the  child  on 
her  shoulder  had  cooed  and  shouted  in  imitation, 
"  Wake — wake — wake !  "  and  she,  laughing,  had 
cast  a  chestnut  she  had  carried  in  her  hand  upon 
the  motionless  figure.  Then,  as  the  prostrate  form 
did  not  stir,  a  sudden  terror  had  seized  her,  and 
she  had  set  the  baby  down  upon  the  grass  and  run 
to  the  olive-tree.  Then  she  had  seen  that  this  was 
death,  for  when  she  had  raised  him  his  head  had 
dropped  and  seemed  to  hang  like  a  poppy  broken 
in  a  blast  of  wind,  and  his  eyes  had  no  sight,  and 
his  mouth  had  no  breath. 

From  that  dread  hour  Clelia  Alba  had  never 
laughed  again.  Her  hair  grew  white,  and  her 
youth  went  away  from  her  forever. 

She  lived  for  the  sake  of  her  son,  but  she  and 
joy  had  parted  company  for  ever. 

His  death  had  made  her  sole  ruler  of  the  Terra 
Vergine;  she  had  both  the  knowledge  and  the 


3* 

strength  necessary  for  culture  of  the  land,  and  she 
taught  her  boy  to  value  and  respect  the  soil. 

"  As  you  treat  the  ground  ill  or  well,  so  will 
your  ground  treat  you,"  she  said  to  him. 

She  always  wore  the  costume  of  the  province, 
which  was  similar  to  that  of  the  Abruzzi  villages, 
and  suited  her  cast  of  features  and  her  strong  and 
haughty  carriage.  On  feast-days  she  wore  three 
strings  of  fine  pearls  round  her  throat,  and  brace- 
lets of  massive  gold  and  of  fine  workmanship,  so 
many  in  number  that  her  arms  were  stiff  with 
them;  they  had  been  her  mother's  and  grand- 
mother's and  greatgrandmother's,  and  had  been 
in  her  dower.  To  sell  or  pawn  them  under  stress 
of  need,  had  such  occurred,  would  never  have 
seemed  to  any  of  her  race  to  be  possible.  It  would 
have  seemed  as  sacrilegious  as  to  take  the  chalice 
off  the  church  altar  and  melt  its  silver  and  jewels 
in  the  fire.  When  she  should  go  to  her  grave 
these  ornaments  would  pass  to  Adone  for  his 
wife,  or  for  his  future  wife;  none  of  her  family 
were  living. 

"  Never  talk  of  death,  mother,"  he  said,  when- 
ever she  spoke  of  these  things.  "  Death  is  always 
listening;  and,  if  he  hear  his  name,  he  taps  the 
talker  on  the  shoulder  just  to  show  that  he  is  there 
and  must  be  reckoned  with." 

"  Not  so,  my  son!  "  replied  Clelia,  with  a  sigh. 


32  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  He  has  every  soul  of  us  written  down  in  his 
books  from  the  time  we  are  born ;  we  all  have  our 
hour  to  go  and  none  of  us  can  alter  it." 

"  I  do  not  believe  that,"  said  Adone.  "  We  kill 
ourselves  oftentimes;  or  we  hasten  our  end  as 
drunkards  do." 

"Did  your  father  hasten  his  end?"  said  his 
mother.  "  Did  not  some  one  break  that  olive 
branch?  It  was  not  the  tree  itself,  though  the 
Ruscino  folks  would  have  it  cut  down  because 
they  called  it  a  felon." 

"  Was  it  not  the  devil  ?  "  said  Adone. 

He  believed  in  the  devil,  of  course,  as  he  had 
been  taught  to  do,  and  had  he  not  as  a  child  met 
the  infernal  effigy  everywhere — in  marble,  in 
stone,  in  wood,  in  colour,  in  the  church  and  out- 
side it;  on  water-spout  and  lamp-iron,  and  even 
on  the  leaves  of  his  primer  ?  But  it  seemed  to  him 
that  the  devil  had  "  troppo  braccia  "  given  him, 
was  allowed  too  long  a  tether,  too  free  a  hand ;  if 
indeed  he  it  were  that  made  everything  go  wrong, 
and  Adone  did  not  see  who  else  it  could  be.  Here, 
in  the  vale  of  Edera,  all  the  world  believed  in 
Satan  as  in  holy  water,  or  in  daily  bread. 

Clelia  Alba  crossed  herself  hastily,  for  she  was 
a  pious  woman. 

"  We  are  talking  blasphemy,  my  son,"  she  said 
gravely.  "  Of  course  there  is  the  good  God  who 


The  Waters  of  Edera  33 

orders  the  number  of  our  days  for  each  of  us,  and 
is  over  us  all." 

Adone  was  silent.  To  him  it  seemed  doubtful. 
Did  the  good  God  kill  the  pretty  little  children  as 
the  butcher  in  a  city  killed  his  lambs?  But  he 
never  contradicted  or  vexed  his  mother;  he  loved 
her  with  a  great  and  tender  affection.  He  was  less 
ignorant  than  she  was,  and  saw  many  things  she 
could  not  see ;  he  was,  as  it  were,  on  a  hilltop  and 
she  down  in  a  valley,  but  he  had  a  profound  re- 
spect for  her;  he  obeyed  her  implicitly,  as  if  he 
were  still  a  child,  and  he  thought  the  world  held 
no  woman  equal  to  her. 

When  he  went  back  to  his  house  that  evening, 
with  his  great  net  on  his  shoulder  and  swinging 
in  one  hand  some  fresh-water  fish,  he  looked  at 
the  stone  bench,  which  was  empty  of  all  except 
some  fallen  rose-leaves,  and  then  anxiously,  ques- 
tioningly,  in  the  face  of  his  mother. 

She  answered  the  regard. 

"  The  girl  is  gone  to  Gianna's  custody,"  she 
said  rather  harshly.  "  Gianna  will  give  her  her 
supper,  and  will  let  her  sleep  in  the  loft.  With 
the  morning  we  will  see  what  we  can  do  for  her, 
and  how  she  can  be  sped  upon  her  way." 

Adone  kissed  her  hands. 

"  You  are  always  good,"  he  said  simply. 

"  I  am  weak,"  answered  his  mother,  "  I  am 


34  The  Waters  of  Edera 

weak,  Adone ;  when  you  wish  anything  I  consent 
to  it  against  my  judgment." 

But  she  was  not  weak ;  or  at  least  only  weak  in 
the  way  in  which  all  generous  natures  are  so. 

On  the  morrow  Nerina  was  not  sped  on  her 
way.  The  old  woman,  Gianna,  thought  well  of 
her. 

"She  is  as  clean  as  a  stone  in  the  water,"  she 
said ;  "she  has  foul-smelling  rags,  but  her  flesh  is 
clean.  She  woke  at  dawn,  and  asked  for  some- 
thing to  do :  She  knows  nought,  but  she  is  willing 
and  teachable.  We  can  make  her  of  use.  She  has 
nowhere  to  go.  She  is  a  stray  little  puppy.  Her 
people  were  miserable,  but  they  seem  to  have  been 
pious  folks.  She  has  a  cross  pricked  on  her  shoul- 
der. She  says  her  mother  did  it  when  she  was  a 
babe  to  scare  the  devil  off  her.  I  do  not  know 
what  to  say;  she  is  a  poor,  forlorn  little  wretch;  if 
you  like  to  keep  her,  I  for  my  part  will  see  to  her. 
I  am  old :  it  is  well  to  do  a  good  work  before  one 
dies." 

Gianna  was  an  old  woman,  half  house-servant, 
half  farm-servant,  wholly  friend;  she  had  lived  at 
the  Terra  Vergine  all  her  life;  big,  gaunt,  and 
very  strong,  she  could  do  the  work  of  a  man,  al- 
though she  was  over  seventy  years  of  age ;  burnt 
black  by  the  sun,  and  with  a  pile  of  grey  hair  like 
the  hank  of  flax  on  her  distaff,  she  was  feared  by 
the  whole  district  for  her  penetrating  glance  and 


The  Waters  of  Edera  35 

her  untiring  energy.  When  Gianna  was  satisfied 
the  stars  had  changed  their  courses,  said  the  peo- 
ple, so  rare  was  the  event;  therefore,  that  this 
little  wanderer  contented  her  was  at  once  a  miracle 
and  a  voucher  indisputable. 

So  the  child  remained  there;  but  her  presence 
troubled  Adone's  mother,  though  Nerina  was 
humble  as  a  homeless  dog,  was  noiseless  and  sel- 
dom seen,  was  obedient,  agile,  and  became  useful 
in  many  manners,  and  learned  with  equal  eager- 
ness the  farm  work  taught  her  by  Gianna,  and  the 
doctrine  taught  her  by  Don  Silverio,  for  she  was 
intelligent  and  willing  in  every  way.  Only  Clelia 
Alba  thought,  "  Perhaps  Gianna's  good  heart  mis- 
leads her.  Gianna  is  rough ;  but  she  has  a  heart  as 
tender  at  bottom  as  a  ripe  melon's  flesh." 

Anyhow,  she  took  her  old  servant's  word  and 
allowed  the  child  to  remain.  She  could  not  bring 
herself  to  turn  adrift  a  female  thing  to  stray  about 
homeless  and  hungry,  and  end  in  some  bottomless 
pit.  The  child  might  be  the  devil's  spawn.  No 
one  could  be  sure.  But  she  had  eyes  which  looked 
up  straight  and  true,  and  were  as  clear  as  the  river 
water  where  it  flowed  over  pebbles  in  the  shade. 
When  the  devil  is  in  a  soul  he  always  grins  be- 
hind the  eyes ;  he  cannot  help  it ;  and  so  you  know 
him ;  thus,  at  least,  they  thought  at  Ruscino  and  in 
all  the  vale  of  Edera;  and  the  devil  did  not  lurk 
in  the  eyes  of  Nerina. 


36  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"Havel  done  right,  reverend  sir?"  asked 
Clelia  Alba  of  the  Vicar  of  Ruscino. 

"  Oh,  yes — yes — charity  is  always  right,"  he 
answered,  unwilling  to  discourage  her  in  her  be- 
nevolence; but  in  his  own  mind  he  thought,  "  the 
child  is  a  child,  but  she  will  grow;  she  is  brown, 
and  starved,  and  ugly  now,  but  she  will  grow; 
she  is  a  female  thing  and  she  will  grow,  and  I 
think  she  will  be  handsome  later  on;  it  would 
have  been  more  prudent  to  have  put  some  money 
in  her  wallet,  and  have  let  her  pass  on  her  way 
down  the  river.  The  saints  forbid  that  I  should 
put  aloes  into  the  honey  of  their  hearts;  but 
this  child  will  grow." 

Clelia  perceived  that  he  had  his  doubts  as  she 
had  hers.  But  they  said  nothing  of  them  to  each 
other.  The  issue  would  lie  with  Time,  whom  men 
always  depict  as  a  mower,  but  who  is  also  a  sower 
too.  However,  for  good  or  ill,  she  was  there; 
and  he  knew  that,  having  once  harboured  her, 
they  would  never  drive  her  adrift.  Clelia  was  in 
every  sense  a  good  woman ;  a  little  hard  at  times, 
narrow  of  sympathy,  too  much  shut  up  in  her  ma- 
ternal passion ;  but  in  the  main  merciful  and  cor- 
rect in  judgment. 

"  If  the  child  were  not  good  the  river  would  not 
have  given  her  to  us,"  said  Adone — and  believed 
it. 

"  Good-day,  my  son,"  said  the  voice  of  the 


The  Waters  of  Edera  37 

Vicar,  Don  Silverio  Frascara,  behind  him,  where 
Adone  worked  in  the  fields.  "  Where  did  you  find 
that  scarecrow  whom  your  mother  has  shown  me 
just  now  ?  " 

"  She  was  in  the  river,  most  reverend,  dancing 
along  in  it,  as  merry  as  a  princess." 

"  But  she  is  a  skeleton !  " 

"  Almost." 

"And  you  know  nothing  of  her?" 

"  Nothing,  sir." 

"  You  are  more  charitable  than  wise." 

"  One  cannot  let  a  little  female  thing  starve 
whilst  one  has  bread  in  the  hutch.  My  mother  is 
a  virtuous  woman.  She  will  teach  the  child  vir- 
tue." 

"  Let  us  hope  so,"  said  Don  Silverio.  "  But  all, 
my  son,  do  not  take  kindly  to  that  lesson." 

"  What  will  be,  will  be.  The  river  brought 
her." 

He  credited  the  river  with  a  more  than  human 
sagacity.  He  held  it  in  awe  and  in  reverence  as  a 
deity,  as  the  Greeks  of  old  held  their  streams.  It 
would  have  drowned  the  child,  he  thought,  if  she 
had  been  an  evil  creature  or  of  evil  augury.  But 
he  did  not  say  so,  for  he  did  not  care  to  provoke 
Don  Silverio's  fine  fleeting  ironical  smile. 

A  goatherd  who  passed  some  few  days  later 
with  his  flock  on  his  way  to  the  mountains,  recog- 
nised the  little  girl. 


38  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  You  are  Black  Fausto's  daughter,"  he  said  to 
her.  "Is  he  dead?  Eh,  well,  we  must  all  die.  May 
his  soul  rest." 

To  Gianna,  who  questioned  him,  he  said,  "  Yes, 
he  was  a  good  soul.  Often  have  I  seen  him  down 
in  the  Roman  plains.  He  worked  himself  to 
death.  These  gangs  of  labourers  get  poor  pay.  I 
saw  him  also  in  the  hills  where  this  girl  comes 
from,  ever  so  high  up,  you  seem  to  touch  the  sky. 
I  summered  there  two  years  ago;  he  had  his 
womankind  in  a  cabin,  and  he  took  all  that  he  got 
home  to  them.  Aye,  he  was  a  good  soul.  We  can 
come  away  out  of  the  heats,  but  they  have  to  stay 
down  in  them ;  for  the  reaping  and  the  sowing  are 
their  chief  gain,  and  they  get  the  fever  into  their 
blood,  and  the  worms  into  their  bellies,  and  it  kills 
them  mostly  before  they  are  forty.  You  see,  at 
Ansalda,  where  he  came  from  it  was  snow  eight 
months  out  of  the  twelve,  so  the  heats  and  the 
mists  killed  him :  for  the  air  you  are  born  in  you 
want,  and  if  you  don't  get  it  in  time  you  sicken." 

"  Like  enough,"  said  Gianna,  who  herself  had 
never  been  out  of  sight  of  the  river  Edera  ever 
since  she  had  been  a  babe  in  swaddling  clothes. 
"  Tell  me,  gossip,  was  the  child  born  in  wed- 
lock?" 

"  Eh,  eh !  "  said  the  goatherd  grinning.  "  That 
I  would  not  take  on  me  to  say.  But  like  enough, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  39 

like  enough;  they  are  always  ready  to  go  before 
the  priest  in  those  high  hills." 

The  little  girl  glided  into  her  place  humbly  and 
naturally,  with  no  servility  but  with  untiring 
willingness  and  thankfulness.  It  seemed  to  her  an 
amazing  favour  of  heaven  to  live  with  these  good 
people;  to  have  a  roof  over  her  head  and  food 
regularly  every  day.  Up  there  in  her  home, 
amongst  the  crags  of  Ansalda,  she  had  never 
known  what  it  was  not  to  have  a  daily  hunger 
gnawing  always  in  her  entrails,  and  making  her 
writhe  at  night  on  her  bed  of  dry  leaves.  In  her 
thirteen  years  of  life  she  had  never  once  had 
enough — no  one  ever  had.  A  full  stomach  had 
been  a  thing  unknown. 

She  began  to  grow,  she  began  to  put  a  little 
flesh  on  her  bones ;  they  had  cut  her  hair  short,  for 
it  had  not  been  clean,  and  it  grew  again  burnished 
and  bright  like  copper;  colour  came  into  her 
cheeks  and  her  lips ;  she  seemed  to  spring  upward, 
visibly,  like  a  young  cane.  She  worked  hard,  but 
she  worked  willingly,  and  she  was  well  nourished 
on  sound  food,  though  it  had  little  variety  and  was 
entirely  vegetable;  and  every  clay  she  went  down 
and  bathed  in  the  river  at  the  same  place  where 
she  had  sat  nude  under  the  dock  leaves  whilst  her 
skirt  dried  in  the  sun. 

To  her  the  Terra  Vergine  was  Paradise  itself; 


40  The  Waters  of  Edera 

to  be  fed,  to  be  clothed,  to  have  a  mattress  to  sleep 
on,  to  work  amongst  the  flowers  and  the  grass  and 
the  animals — it  was  all  so  beautiful,  she  thought 
sometimes  that  she  must  be  in  heaven. 

She  spoke  little.  Since  she  had  been  under  this 
roof  she  had  grown  ashamed  of  the  squalor  and 
starvation  and  wretchedness  of  her  past  existence. 
She  did  not  like  to  think  of  it  even;  it  had  been 
no  fault  of  hers,  but  she  felt  ashamed  that  she 
ever  should  have  been  that  little  filthy,  unkempt 
naked  thing,  grovelling  on  the  clay  floor,  and 
fighting  for  mouldy  crusts  with  the  other  children 
on  the  rock  of  Ansalda. 

"  If  I  had  only  known  when  father  was  alive," 
she  thought,  but  even  if  she  had  known  all  she 
knew  now,  what  could  she  have  done  ?  There  had 
been  nothing  to  use,  nothing  to  eat,  nothing  to 
wear,  and  the  rain  and  the  snow  and  the  wind  had 
come  in  on  them  where  they  had  lain  huddled  to- 
gether on  their  bed  of  rotten  leaves. 

Now  and  then  she  said  something  of  that  rude 
childhood  of  hers  to  Adone;  she  was  afraid  of  the 
women,  but  not  of  him;  she  trotted  after  him  as 
the  little  white  curly  dog  Signorino  trotted  after 
Don  Silverio. 

"  Do  not  think  of  those  dark  days,  little  one," 
he  said  to  her.  "  They  are  gone  by.  Think  of 
your  parents  and  pray  for  their  souls ;  but  let  the 
rest  go ;  you  have  all  your  life  to  live." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  41 

"  My  mother  was  young  when  she  died,"  said 
the  child.  "  If  she  had  had  food  she  would  not 
have  died.  She  said  so.  She  kept  on  gnawing  a 
bit  of  rag  which  was  soaked  in  water;  you  cheat 
hunger  that  way,  you  know,  but  it  does  not  fill 
you." 

"  Poor  soul !  Poor  soul !  "  said  Adone,  and  he 
thought  of  the  great  markets  he  had  seen  in  the 
north,  the  droves  of  oxen,  the  piles  of  fruits,  the 
long  lines  of  wine  carts,  the  heaps  of  slaughtered 
game,  the  countless  shops  with  their  electric  light, 
the  trains  running  one  after  another  all  the  nights 
and  every  night  to  feed  the  rich ;  and  he  thought, 
as  he  had  thought  when  a  boy,  that  the  devil  had 
troppo  braccio,  if  any  devil  indeed  there  were  be- 
side man  himself. 

Should  there  be  anywhere  on  the  face  of  the 
earth,  young  women,  good  women,  mothers  of 
babes  who  died  of  sheer  hunger  like  this  mother 
of  Nerina's  up  yonder  in  the  snows  of  the 
Abruzzi?  He  thought  not;  his  heart  revolted  at 
the  vision  of  her,  a  living  skeleton  on  her  heap  of 
leaves. 

"  Father  brought  all  he  had,"  continued  the 
child,  "  but  he  could  not  come  back  until  after  har- 
vest, and  when  he  came  back  she  had  been  in  the 
ground  two  months  and  more.  They  put  him  in 
the  same  ditch  when  his  turn  came;  but  she  was 
no  longer  there,  for  they  take  up  the  bones  every 


42  The  Waters  of  Edera 

three  years  and  burn  them.  They  say  they  must, 
else  the  ditch  would  get  too  full." 

Adone  shuddered.  He  knew  that  tens  of  thou- 
sands died  so,  and  had  died  so  ever  since  the  days 
of  Phenicians  and  Gauls  and  Goths.  But  it  re- 
volted him.  The  few  gorged,  the  many  famished 
— strange  disproportion!  unkind  and  unfair  bal- 
ance ! 

But  what  remedy  was  there  ? 

Adone  had  read  some  socialistic  and  com- 
munistic literature;  but  it  had  not  satisfied  him; 
it  had  seemed  to  him  vain,  verbose,  alluring,  but 
unreal,  no  better  adapted  to  cure  any  real  hunger 
than  the  soaked  rag  of  Nerina's  mother. 


Ill 

THE  Val  d'Edera  is  situated  on  the  south  of  the 
Marches,  on  the  confines  of  what  is  now  the  terri- 
torial division  of  the  Abruzzo-Molese,  and  so  lies 
between  the  Apennines  and  the  Adriatic,  fanned 
by  cool  winds  in  summer  from  the  eternal  snow  of 
the  mountain  peaks,  and  invigorated  in  all  sea- 
sons by  breezes  from  the  Adrian  Sea. 

Ruscino,  placed  midway  in  the  valley,  is  only  a 
village  to  which  no  traveller  had  for  many  years 
come,  and  of  which  no  geographer  ever  speaks ;  it 
is  marked  on  the  maps  of  military  topographers, 
and  is,  of  course,  inscribed  on  the  fiscal  rolls,  but 
is  now  no  more  than  a  village ;  though  once  when 
the  world  was  young  it  was  the  Etruscan  Ruscise, 
and  then  the  Latin  Ruscinonis ;  and  then  when  the 
Papacy  was  mighty,  it  was  the  militant  principal- 
ity of  the  fortified  town  of  Ruscino.  But  it  was 
now  only  an  almost  uninhabited  village ;  a  pale,  di- 
minutive, shrunken  relic  of  its  heroic  self ;  and  of 
it  scarcely  any  man  knows  anything  except  the 
few  men  who  make  their  dwelling  there;  sons  of 
the  soil,  who  spring  from  its  marble  dust  and  re- 
turn to  it. 

43 


44  The  Waters  of  Edera 

It  had  shrunk  to  a  mere  hamlet  as  far  as  its 
population  was  counted;  it  shrank  more  and  more 
with  every  census.  There  was  but  a  handful  of 
poor  people  who,  when  gathered  together  in  the 
great  church,  looked  no  more  than  a  few  flies  on  a 
slab  of  marble. 

The  oldest  men  and  women  of  the  place  could 
recall  the  time  when  it  had  been  still  of  some  im- 
portance as  a  posting  place  on  the  mountain  route 
between  the  markets  of  the  coast  and  the  western 
towns,  when  its  highway  had  been  kept  clean  and 
clear  through  the  woods  for  public  and  private 
conveyance,  and  when  the  clatter  of  horses'  hoofs 
and  merry  notes  of  horns  had  roused  the  echoes  of 
its  stones.  In  that  first  half  of  the  century,  too, 
they  had  lived  fairly  well,  and  wine  and  fowls  had 
cost  next  to  nothing,  and  home-made  loaves  had 
been  always  large  enough  to  give  a  beggar  or  a 
stray  dog  a  slice.  But  these  times  had  long  been 
over ;  every  one  was  hungry  now  and  every  one  a 
beggar  by  way  of  change,  and  to  make  things 
equal,  as  the  people  said,  with  dreary  mirth  and 
helpless  acquiescence  in  their  lot.  Like  most 
riverain  people  they  lived  chiefly  by  the  river, 
cutting  and  selling  its  canes,  its  sallows,  its  osiers, 
its  sedges,  catching  its  fish,  digging  its  sand ;  but 
there  were  few  buyers  in  this  depopulated  district. 

Don  Silverio  Frascara,  its  vicar,  had  been  sent 
to  Ruscino  as  a  chastisement  for  his  too  sceptical 


The  Waters  of  Edera  45 

and  inquiring  mind,  his  too  undisciplined  temper. 
Nearly  twenty  years  in  this  solitude  had  chastened 
both;  the  fire  had  died  out  of  his  soul  and  the 
light  out  of  his  eyes.  His  days  were  as  monoto- 
nous as  those  of  the  blinded  ass  set  to  turn  the 
wine-press.  All  the  steel  of  his  spirit  rusted,  all 
the  brilliancy  of  his  brain  clouded ;  his  life  was  like 
a  fine  rapier  which  is  left  in  a  corner  of  a  dusty 
attic  and  forgotten. 

In  certain  rare  states  of  the  atmosphere  the 
gold  cross  on  St.  Peter's  is  visible  from  some  of 
the  peaks  of  the  Abruzzese  Apennines.  It  looks 
like  a  speck  of  light  far,  far  away  in  the  silver- 
green  of  the  western  horizon.  When  one  day  he 
climbed  to  such  an  altitude  and  saw  it  thus,  his 
heart  contracted  with  a  sickly  pain,  for  in  Rome 
he  had  dreamed  many  dreams;  and  in  Rome, 
until  his  exile  to  the  Vale  of  Edera,  he  had  been  a 
preacher  of  noted  eloquence,  of  brilliant  fascina- 
tion, and  of  daring  thought. 

There  had  been  long  cypress  alleys  which  at 
sunset  had  glowed  with  rose  and  gold  where  he 
had  in  his  few  leisure  hours  builded  up  sudr  vis- 
ions for  the  future  as  illumined  the  unknown 
years  to  the  eyes  of  an  Ignatius,  a  Hildebrand.  a 
Lacordaire,  a  Bossuet.  On  the  place  where  those 
grand  avenues  had  stretched  their  green  length  in 
the  western  light  and  the  seminarist  had  paced 
over  the  sward  there  were  now  long,  dreary  lines 


46  The  Waters  of  Edera 

of  brick  and  stone,  the  beaten  dust  of  roadways, 
the  clang  and  smoke  of  engines;  as  the  gardens 
had  passed  away  so  had  passed  his  ambitions  and 
visions,  as  the  cypresses  had  been  ground  to  pow- 
der in  the  steam  mill  so  was  he  crushed  and 
effaced  under  an  inexorable  fate.  The  Church, 
intolerant  of  individuality,  like  all  despotisms,  had 
broken  his  spirit;  like  all  despotisms  the  tyranny 
had  been  blind.  But  he  was  rebellious  to  doctrine 
— she  bound  him  to  her  stake. 

He  would  have  been  a  great  prelate,  perhaps 
even  a  great  Pope ;  but  he  would  have  been  also  a 
great  reformer,  so  she  stamped  him  down  into 
nothingness  under  her  iron  heel.  And  for  almost 
a  score  of  years  she  had  kept  him  in  Ruscino, 
where  he  buried  and  baptized  the  old  and  new 
creatures  who  squirmed  in  the  dust,  where  any 
ordinary  country  priest  able  to  gabble  through  the 
ritual  could  have  done  as  well  as  he.  Some  few 
of  the  more  liberal  and  learned  dignitaries  of  the 
Church  did  indeed  think  that  it  was  waste  of  great 
powers,  but  he  had  the  Sacred  College  against 
him,  and  no  one  ventured  to  speak  in  his  favour 
at  the  Vatican.  He  had  no  pious  women  of  rank 
to  plead  for  him,  no  millionaires  and  magnates  to 
solicit  his  preferment.  He  was  with  time  forgot- 
ten as  utterly  as  a  folio  is  forgotten  on  a  library 
shelf  until  mildew  eats  its  ink  away  and  spiders 
nest  between  its  leaves.  He  had  the  forty  pounds 


The  Waters  of  Edera  47 

a  year  which  the  State  pays  to  its  parish  priests; 
and  he  had  nothing  else. 

He  was  a  tall  and  naturally  stately  man,  but  his 
form  was  bent  by  that  want  of  good  food  which 
is  the  chronic  malady  of  many  parts  of  Italy. 
There  was  little  to  eat  in  Ruscino,  and  had  there 
been  more  there  would  have  been  no  one  who 
knew  how  to  prepare  it.  Bread,  beans,  a  little  oil, 
a  little  lard,  herbs  which  grew  wild,  goat's  milk, 
cheese,  and  at  times  a  few  small  river  fish ;  these 
were  all  his  sustenance;  his  feasts  and  his  fasts 
were  much  alike,  and  the  little  wine  he  had  he 
gave  away  to  the  sick  and  the  aged.  For  this 
reason  his  high  stature  was  bent  and  his  com- 
plexion was  of  the  clear,  yellow  pallor  of  old  mar- 
bles ;  his  profile  was  like  the  Caesarian  outline  on  a 
medallion,  and  his  eyes  were  deep  wells  of  im- 
penetrable thought;  his  finely  cut  lips  rarely 
smiled,  they  had  always  upon  them  an  expression 
of  bitterness  as  though  the  apple  of  life  in  its  eat- 
ing had  been  harsh  and  hard  as  a  crab. 

His  presbytery  was  close  to  his  church,  a  dreary 
place  with  a  few  necessaries  and  many  books  only 
within  it,  and  his  only  servant  was  an  old  man, 
lame  and  stupid,  who  served  also  as  sacristan. 

It  was  a  cure  of  souls  which  covered  many  miles 
but  counted  few  persons.  Outside  the  old  walls 
of  Ruscino  nearly  all  the  land  of  the  vale  of  Edera 
was  untilled,  and  within  them  a  few  poverty- 


48  The  Waters  of  Edera 

stricken  people  dragged  out  their  days  uncared  for 
by  any  one,  only  remembered  by  the  collectors  of 
fiscal  dues.  "  They  never  forget,"  said  the  people. 
"  As  soon  as  one  is  born,  always  and  in  every  sea- 
son, until  one's  bones  rattle  down  into  the  ditch 
of  the  dead,  they  remember  always." 

The  grasp  of  an  invisible  power  took  the  crust 
off  their  bread,  the  toll  off  their  oil,  off  their  bed 
of  sacking,  off  their  plate  of  fish,  and  took  their 
children  when  they  grew  to  manhood  and  sent 
them  into  strange  lands  and  over  strange  seas; 
they  felt  the  grip  of  that  hard  hand  as  their  fore- 
fathers had  felt  it  under  the  Caesars,  under  the 
Popes,  under  the  feudal  lords,  under  the  foreign 
kings,  so  they  felt  it  now  under  the  Casa  Sabauda; 
the  same,  always  the  same;  for  the  manners  and 
titles  of  the  State  may  change,  but  its  appetite 
never  lessens,  and  its  greed  never  spares.  For 
twice  a  thousand  years  their  blood  had  flowed  and 
their  earnings  had  been  wrung  out  of  them  in  the 
name  of  the  State,  and  nothing  was  changed  in 
that  respect;  the  few  lads  they  begot  amongst 
them  went  to  Africa,  now  as  under  Pompeius  or 
Scipio ;  and  their  corn  sack  was  taken  away  from 
them  under  Depretis  or  Crispi,  as  under  the 
Borgia  or  the  Malatesta:  and  their  grape  skins 
soaked  in  water  were  taxed  as  wine,  their  salt  for 
their  soup-pot  was  seized  as  contraband,  unless  it 
bore  the  government  stamp,  and  if  they  dared  say 


The  Waters  of  Edera  49 

a  word  of  resistance  there  were  the  manacles  and 
the  prison  under  Vittorio  and  Umberto  as  under 
Bourbon  or  Bonaparte ;  for  there  are  some  things 
which  are  immutable  as  fate.  At  long  intervals, 
during  the  passing  of  ages,  the  poor  stir,  like 
trodden  worms,  under  this  inexorable  monotony 
of  their  treatment  by  their  rulers ;  and  then  baleful 
fires  redden  the  sky,  and  blood  runs  in  the  con- 
duits, and  the  rich  man  trembles;  but  the  cannon 
are  brought  up  at  full  gallop  and  it  is  soon  over ; 
there  is  nothing  ever  really  altered ;  the  iron  heel 
only  presses  the  harder  on  the  unhappy  worm, 
and  there  is  nothing  changed. 

Here  at  Ruscino  there  were  tombs  of  nenfro 
which  had  overhung  the  river  for  thirty  centuries ; 
but  those  tombs  have  never  seen  any  other  thing 
than  this,  nor  ever  will  until  the  light  and  the 
warmth  of  the  sun  shall  be  withdrawn  for  ever, 
and  the  earth  shall  remain  alone  with  her  buried 
multitudes. 

There  was  only  Don  Silverio  who  thought  of 
such  a  thing  as  this,  a  scholar  all  alone  amongst 
barbarians;  for  his  heart  ached  for  his  barbarians, 
though  they  bore  him  no  love  in  return  for  his 
pity.  They  would  have  liked  better  a  gossiping, 
rotund,  familiar,  ignorant,  peasant  priest,  one  of 
themselves,  chirping  formula  comfortably  over 
skeleton  corpses. 

In  default  of  other  interests  he  interested  him- 


50  The  Waters  of  Edera 

self  in  this  ancient  place,  passing  from  neglect 
into  oblivion,  as  his  own  life  was  doing.  There 
were  Etruscan  sepulchres  and  Pelasgic  caves 
which  had  been  centuries  earlier  rifled  of  their 
objects  of  value,  but  still  otherwise  remained 
untouched  under  the  acacia  woods  by  the  river. 
There  were  columns,  and  terraces,  and  founda- 
tions of  marble  which  had  been  there  when 
the  Latin  city  of  Ruscinonis  had  flourished  from 
the  time  of  Augustus  until  its  destruction  by  The- 
odoric.  And  nearest  of  all  these  to  him  were  the 
Longobardo  church  and  the  ancient  houses,  and 
the  dismantled  fortress,  and  the  ruined  walls,  of 
what  had  been  the  fief  of  the  Toralba,  the  mediae- 
val fortified  town  of  Ruscino.  It  still  kept  this, 
its  latest,  name,  but  it  kept  little  else.  Thrice  a 
thousand  centuries  had  rolled  over  it,  eating  it 
away  as  the  sea  eats  away  a  cliff.  War  and  fire 
and  time  had  had  their  will  with  it  for  so  long  that 
dropped  acorns  and  pine-pips  had  been  allowed 
leisure  to  sink  between  the  stones,  and  sprout,  and 
bud,  and  rise,  and  spread,  and  were  now  hoary  and 
giant  trees  of  which  the  roots  were  sunk  deep  into 
its  ruins,  its  graves,  its  walls. 

It  had  been  Etruscan,  it  had  been  Latin,  it  had 
been  Longobardo,  it  had  been  Borgian  and  Papal ; 
through  all  these  changes  a  fortified  city,  then  a 
castellated  town,  then  a  walled  village ;  and  a  vil- 
lage it  now  remained.  It  would  never  be  more, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  5 1 

before  many  generations  passed  it  would  probably 
have  become  still  less;  a  mere  tumulus,  a  mere 
honeycomb  of  tombs,  hidden  beneath  the  wild 
sage  and  the  clambering  clematis,  and  would  thus 
escape  the  shameful  death  of  greater  places  from 
telegraph  and  telephone  poles  driven  through 
their  mosaic  floors,  and  from  wheels  grinding  to 
powder  the  dust  of  their  deserted  agorae.  It  was 
perishing,  surely  though  slowly,  but  in  peace,  with 
the  grass  growing  on  its  temple  stairs,  and  the 
woodbine  winding  round  its  broken  columns. 

The  trained  and  stored  intellect  of  Don  Silverio 
could  set  each  period  of  its  story  apart  and  read 
all  the  indices  remaining  of  each.  Ruscino  was 
now  to  all  others  a  mere  poverty-stricken  place, 
brown  and  gaunt  and  sorrowful,  in  the  sun,  with 
only  the  river  beneath  it  to  keep  it  clean  and  alive. 
But  to  him  it  was  as  a  palimpsest  of  surpassing 
value  and  interest,  which,  sorely  difficult  to  de- 
cipher, held  its  treasures  close  from  the  profane 
and  the  ignorant,  but  tempted  and  rewarded  the 
scholar,  like  the  lettering  on  a  Pompeian  nuptial 
ring,  the  cyphers  on  a  funeral  urn  of  Hercu- 
laneum.  "  After  all  my  lot  might  be  worse  than 
it  is,"  he  thought  with  philosophy.  "  They  might 
have  sent  me  to  a  modern  manufacturing  town  in 
Lombardy,  or  exiled  me  to  a  socialistic  philanstere 
in  the  Ticino !  " 

Here,  at  least,  he  had  history  and  nature,  and 


52  The  Waters  of  Edera 

he  enjoyed  thousands  of  hours  undisturbed  in 
which  to  read  or  write,  or  muse  and  ponder  on  this 
chronicle  of  brick  and  stone,  this  buried  mass  of 
dead  men's  labours  and  of  dead  men's  dust. 

Doubtless  his  manuscripts  would  lie  unknown, 
unread ;  no  man  would  care  for  them ;  but  the  true 
scholar  cares  neither  for  public  or  posterity;  he 
lives  for  the  work  he  loves ;  and  if  he  knows  that 
he  will  have  few  readers  in  the  future — maybe 
none — how  many  read  Grotius,  or  Boethius,  or 
Chrysostom,  or  Jerome? 

Here,  like  a  colony  of  ants,  the  generations  had 
crowded  one  on  another,  now  swept  away  by  the 
stamp  of  a  conqueror's  heel  and  now  succeeded  by 
another  toiling  swarm,  building  anew  each  time 
out  of  ruin,  undaunted  by  the  certainty  of  destruc- 
tion, taught  nothing  by  the  fate  of  their  precur- 
sors. 

From  the  profound  sense  of  despair  which  the 
contemplation  of  the  uselessness  of  human  effort 
and  the  waste  of  human  life  produces  on  the 
scholar's  mind,  it  was  a  relief  to  him  to  watch  the 
gladness  of  its  river,  the  buoyancy  of  its  currents, 
the  foam  of  white  blossom  on  its  acacia  and 
syringa  thickets,  the  gold  spectres  and  green  lances 
of  its  iris-pseudacorus,  the  sweep  of  the  winds 
through  its  bulrushes  and  canebrakes,  the  glory  of 
colour  in  the  blue  stars  of  its  veronica,  the  bright 
rosy  spikes  of  its  epilobium.  The  river  seemed 


The  Waters  of  Edera  53 

always  happy,  even  when  the  great  rainfall  of 
autumn  churned  it  into  froth  and  the  lightnings 
illumined  its  ink-black  pools. 

It  was  on  the  river  that  he  had  first  mace 
friends  with  Adone,  then  a  child  of  six,  playing 
and  splashing  in  the  stream,  on  a  midsummer 
noon.  Don  Silverio  also  was  bathing.  Adone,  a 
little  nude  figure,  as  white  as  alabaster  in  the  hot 
light,  for  he  was  very  fair  of  skin,  sprang  suddenly 
out  of  the  water  on  to  the  turf  above  where  his 
breeches  and  shirt  had  been  left;  he  was  in  haste, 
for  he  had  heard  his  mother  calling  to  him  from 
their  fields ;  an  adder  started  out  of  a  coil  of  bind- 
weed and  wound  itself  round  his  ankle  as  he 
stooped  for  his  clothes. 

The  priest,  standing  waist-deep  in  the  river  a 
few  yards  away,  saw  it  before  the  child  did,  and 
cried  out  to  him :  "Stand  still  till  I  come !  Be  not 
afraid !  "  Adone  understood,  and  although  trem- 
bling with  terror  and  loathing  as  he  realised  his 
danger,  and  felt  the  slimy  clasp  of  the  snake,  re- 
mained motionless  as  he  was  bidden  to  do.  In  a 
second  of  time  the  priest  had  leaped  through  the 
water  to  his  side,  seized  the  adder  and  killed  it. 

"Good  boy,"  he  said  to  the  child.  "If  you  had 
moved  your  foot  the  creature  would  have  bitten 
you." 

Adone's  eyes  filled  with  tears. 

"Thank  you,  sir;  thank  you  for  mother,"  he 


54  The  Waters  of  Edera 

said  very  gently,  for  he  was  a  shy  child,  though 
courageous. 

The  priest  stroked  his  curls. 

"There  is  death  in  the  grass  very  often.  We 
should  not  fear  death,  but  neither  should  we  run 
risk  of  it  uselessly,  especially  when  we  have  a 
mother  whom  it  would  grieve.  Come  and  bathe 
at  this  spot,  at  this  hour  to-morrow  and  every 
day,  if  you  like.  I  will  be  here  and  look  after 
you;  you  are  little  to  be  alone." 

They  were  often  together  from  that  day  on- 
wards. 

The  brutishness  and  greed  of  his  flock  op- 
pressed him.  He  was  sent  here  to  have  care  of 
their  souls,  but  where  were  their  souls?  They 
would  all  have  sold  them  to  the  foul  fiend  for  a 
mess  of  artichokes  fried  in  oil. 

In  such  a  solitude  as  this  he  had  been  glad  to 
be  able  to  teach  and  move  the  young  malleable 
mind  of  Adone  Alba;  the  only  one  of  them  who 
seemed  to  have  any  mind  at  all.  Adone  also  had 
a  voice  as  sweet  as  a  nightingale  in  the  syringa 
bushes  in  May;  and  it  pierced  the  gloom  of  the 
old  naked  gaunt  church  as  a  nightingale's  thrills 
through  the  dark  hour  before  dawn. 

There  was  no  other  music  in  that  choir  except 
the  children's  or  youth's  voices ;  there  was  nothing 
to  make  music  with  except  those  flexible  pipes  of 
the  boyish  throats;  and  Don  Silverio  loved  and 


The  Waters  of  Edera  55 

understood  choral  music;  he  had  studied  it  in 
Rome.  Adone  never  refused  to  sing  for  him,  and 
when  the  voice  of  adolescence  had  replaced  that  of 
childhood,  he  would  still  stand  no  less  docilely  by 
the  old  marble  lectern,  and  wake  the  melodies  of 
early  masters  from  the  yellow  pages. 

The  church  was  as  damp  as  a  vault  of  the  dead; 
cold  even  when  the  dog-star  reigned  in  the  heav- 
ens. The  brasses  and  bronzes  were  rusted  with 
moisture,  and  the  marbles  were  black  with  the 
spores  of  mould;  rain  dripped  through  the  joints 
of  the  roof,  and  innumerable  sparrows  made  their 
nests  there;  the  mosaics  of  the  floor  were  green 
from  these  droppings,  and  from  those  of  the  rain ; 
the  sun  never  entered  through  any  of  the  win- 
dows, which  were  yellow  with  age  and  dust;  but 
here,  with  a  lantern  for  their  only  light,  they  so- 
laced each  other  with  the  song  of  the  great  choral 
masters.  Only  Adone,  although  he  never  said  or 
showed  it,  was  glad  when  the  huge  key  groaned 
in  the  lock  of  the  outer  door,  and  he  ran  out 
into  the  evening  starlight,  down  the  steep  streets, 
across  the  bridge,  and  felt  the  fresh  river  air 
blowing  on  him,  and  heard  the  swirling  of  the 
water  amongst  the  frost-stiffened  canes;  and  saw 
far  off  in  the  darkened  fields  the  glimmer  of  a 
light — the  light  of  home. 

That  old  home  was  the  dearest  thing  on  earth 
to  the  young  man.  He  had  never  been  away 


56  The  Waters  of  Edera 

from  it  but  once,  when  the  conscription  called  him. 
In  that  time,  which  had  been  to  him  like  a  night- 
mare, the  time  of  his  brief  exile  to  the  army,  brief 
because  he  was  the  only  son  of  a  widow,  he  had 
been  sent  to  a  northern  city,  one  of  commerce  and 
noise  and  crowded,  breathless  life;  he  had  been 
cooped  up  in  it  like  a  panther  in  a  den,  like  a  hawk 
in  a  cage.  What  he  saw  of  the  vices  and  appetites 
of  men,  the  pressure  of  greed  and  of  gain,  the 
harsh  and  stupid  tyranny  of  the  few,  the  slavish 
and  ignoble  submission  of  the  many;  the  brutish 
bullying,  the  crouching  obedience,  the  deadly 
routine,  the  lewd  license  of  reaction — all  filled  him 
with  disdain  and  with  disgust.  When  he  re- 
turned to  his  valley  he  bathed  in  the  waters  of 
Edera  before  he  crossed  his  mother's  threshold. 

"  Make  me  clean  as  I  was  when  I  left  you ! " 
he  cried,  and  took  the  water  in  the  hollow  of  his 
hands  and  kissed  it. 

But  no  water  flows  on  the  earth  from  land  to 
sea  which  can  wholly  cleanse  the  soul  as  it 
cleanses  the  body. 

That  brief  time  under  arms  he  cursed  as  thou- 
sands of  youths  have  cursed  it.  Its  hated  stigma 
and  pollution  never  wholly  passed  away.  It  left 
a  bitterness  on  his  lips,  a  soil  upon  his  memories. 
But  how  sweet  to  him  beyond  expression,  on  his 
return,  were  the  sound  of  the  rushing  river  in 
the  silence  of  the  night,  the  pure  odours  of  the 


The  Waters  of  Edera  57 

blossoming  beanfields,  the  clear  dark  sky  with  its 
radiant  stars,  the  sense  of  home,  the  peace  of  his 
own  fields! 

"  Mother,  whether  life  for  me  shall  be  long 
or  short,  here  its  every  hour  shall  be  spent !  "  he 
said,,  as  he  stood  on  his  own  ground  and  looked 
through  the  olive-trees  to  the  river,  running 
swiftly  and  strong  beneath  the  moon. 

"  Those  are  good  words,  my  son,"  said  Clelia 
Alba,  and  her  hands  rested  on  his  bowed  head. 

He  adored  both  the  soil  and  the  water  of  this 
place  of  his  birth;  no  toil  upon  either  seemed  to 
him  hard  or  mean.  All  which  seemed  to  him  to 
matter  much  in  the  life  of  a  man  was  to  be  free, 
and  he  was  so.  In  that  little  kingdom  of  fertile 
soil  and  running  stream  no  man  could  bid  him 
come  and  go,  no  law  ruled  his  uprising  and  his 
down  lying;  he  had  enough  for  his  own  wants 
and  the  wants  of  those  about  him,  enough 
for  the  needs  of  the  body,  and  the  mind  here 
had  not  many  needs;  at  the  Terra  Vergine 
he  was  his  own  master,  except  so  far  as  he 
cheerfully  deferred  to  his  mother,  and  all 
which  he  put  into  the  earth  he  could  take  out 
of  it  for  his  own  usage,  though  indeed  the  fiscal 
authorities  claimed  well  nigh  one-half,  rating  his 
land  at  far  more  than  its  worth.  No  doubt  scien- 
tific agriculture  might  have  made  it  yield  more 
than  it  did ;  but  he  was  content  to  follow  the  ways 


58  The  Waters  of  Edera 

of  old;  he  farmed  as  men  did  when  the  Sun-god 
was  the  farm  slave  of  Admetus.  The  hellebore 
and  the  violets  grew  at  will  in  his  furrows;  the 
clematis  and  the  ivy  climbed  his  fig-trees;  the 
fritillaria  and  the  daphne  grew  in  his  pastures, 
and  he  never  disturbed  them,  or  scared  the  starling 
and  the  magpie  which  fluttered  in  the  wake  of  his 
wooden  plough.  The  land  was  good  land,  and 
gave  him  whatever  he  wanted ;  he  grudged  noth- 
ing off  it  to  bird,  or  beast,  or  leaf,  or  flower,  or  to 
the  hungry  wayfarer  who  chanced  to  pass  by  his 
doors.  In  remote  places  the  old  liberal,  frank, 
open-handed  hospitality  of  an  earlier  time  is  still 
in  Italy  a  practice  as  well  as  a  tradition. 

The  house  was  their  own,  and  the  earth  gave 
them  their  bread,  their  wine,  their  vegetables, 
their  oil,  hemp  and  flax  for  their  linen,  and  herbs 
for  their  soup;  of  the  olive-oil  they  had  more 
than  enough  for  use,  and  the  surplus  was  sold 
once  a  year  in  the  nearest  town,  San  Beda,  and 
served  to  meet  the  fiscal  demands.  They  had 
rarely  any  ready  money,  but  no  peasant  in  Italy 
ever  expects,  unless  by  some  luck  at  lotto,  to 
have  money  in  his  pocket. 

He  worked  hard;  at  some  seasons  extremely 
hard;  he  hired  labour  sometimes,  but  not  often, 
for  to  pay  for  the  hiring  takes  the  profit  off  the 
land.  But  he  had  been  used  to  such  work  from 
childhood,  and  it  was  never  irksome  to  him ;  even 


The  Waters  of  Edera  59 

though  he  rose  in  the  dark  and  rarely  went  home 
to  supper  till  the  stars  were  shining.  He  had  no 
near  neighbours  except  the  poor  folks  in  Ruscino. 
All  surrounding  him  was  grass  and  moor  and 
wood,  called  communal  property,  but  in  reality 
belonging  legally  to  no  one;  vast,  still  fragrant 
leagues  of  uninhabited  country  stretching  away 
to  the  blue  hills,  home  of  the  fox  and  the  hare 
and  the  boar,  of  the  hawk  and  the  woodpecker 
and  the  bittern. 

Through  those  wilds  he  loved  to  wander  alone ; 
the  sweet  stillness  of  a  countryside  which  was  un- 
contaminated  by  the  residence  of  men  stilling  the 
vague  unrest  of  his  youth,  and  the  mountains 
towering  in  the  light  lending  to  the  scene  the 
charm  of  the  unknown. 

In  days  of  storm  or  rain  he  read  with  Don  Sil- 
verio  or  sang  in  the  church ;  on  fine  holy-days  he 
roamed  far  afield  in  the  lonely  heatherlands  and 
woodlands  which  were  watered  by  the  Edera. 
He  carried  a  gun,  for  defence  if  need  be,  for  there 
were  boars  and  wolves  in  these  solitudes;  but 
he  never  used  it  upon  bird  or  beast. 

Like  St.  Francis  of  Assissi  both  he  and  Don 
Silverio  took  more  pleasure  in  the  life  than  in  the 
death  of  fair  winged  things. 

"  We  are  witness,  twice  in  every  year,  of  that 
great  and  inexplicable  miracle,"  the  priest  said 
often,  "  that  passage  of  small,  frail,  unguided 


60  The  Waters  of  Edera 

creatures,  over  seas  and  continents,  through  tem- 
pests and  simoons,  and  with  every  man's  hand 
against  them,  and  death  waiting  to  take  them 
upon  every  shore,  by  merciless  and  treacherous 
tricks,  and  we  think  nought  of  it ;  we  care  nought 
for  it;  we  spread  the  nets  and  the  gins — that  is 
all.  We  are  unworthy  of  all  which  makes  the 
earth  beautiful — vilely  unworthy !  " 

One  of  the  causes  of  his  unpopularity  in  Rus- 
cino  was  the  inexorable  persistence  with  which 
he  broke  their  gins,  lifted  their  nets,  cleared  off 
their  birdlime,  dispersed  their  watertraps,  and 
forbade  the  favourite  night  poaching  by  lanterns 
in  the  woods.  Mbre  than  once  they  threatened 
his  life,  but  he  only  smiled. 

"  Faccia  pure!  "  he  said,  "  you  will  cut  a  knot 
which  I  did  not  tie,  and  which  I  cannot  myself 
undo." 

But  they  held  him  in  too  much  awe  to  dare  to 
touch  him,  and  they  knew  that  again  and  again 
he  went  on  bread  and  water  himself  to  give  his 
wine  to  the  sick,  or  his  strip  of  meat  to  their  old 
people. 

Moreover  they  feared  Adone. 

"  If  you  touch  a  hair  of  Don  Silverio's  head, 
or  the  hem  of  his  cassock,  I  will  burn  Ruscino," 
said  Adone  to  one  of  those  who  had  threatened 
his  friend,  "  and  you  will  all  burn  with  it,  for  the 


The  Waters  of  Edera  6 1 

river  will  not  help  you;  the  river  will  turn  to  oil 
and  make  the  flames  rage  tenfold." 

The  people  were  afraid  as  they  heard  him,  for 
good  as  he  was,  and  usually  gentle,  he  could  be 
on  provocation  both  furious  and  pitiless  if  he 
were  crossed. 

"  For  sure  'tis  the  dead  Tor'alba  as  speak  in 
him,"  they  said  with  fright  under  their  breath, 
for  there  was  a  tale  told  in  the  district  that  Adone 
Alba  was  descended  from  the  old  war-lords. 

The  veterans  of  the  village  and  the  country- 
side remembered  hearing  their  fathers  say  that 
the  family  of  the  Terra  Vergine  were  descended 
from  those  great  marquises  who  had  reigned  for 
centuries  in  that  Rocca,  which  was  now  a  grim 
ivy-covered  ruin  on  the  north  of  the  Edera  Wa- 
ter. But  more  than  this  no  one  could  say;  no 
one  could  tell  how  the  warlike  race  had  become 
mere  tillers  of  the  soil,  or  how  those  who  had 
measured  out  life  and  death  up  and  down  the 
course  of  the  valley  had  lost  their  power  and  pos- 
sessions. There  were  vague  traditions  of  a  terri- 
ble siege,  following  on  a  great  battle  in  the  vale; 
that  was  all. 


IV 

THE  church  in  which  Don  Silverio  officiated 
every  morning  and  evening  for  the  benefit  of  a 
few  old  crones,  had  once  been  a  Latin  tem- 
ple; it  had  been  built  from  the  Corinthian 
pillars,  the  marble  peristyle,  the  rounded,  open 
dome,  like  that  of  the  Pantheon,  of  a  pagan 
edifice;  and  to  these  had  been  added  a  Longo- 
bardo  belfry  and  chancel;  pigeons  and  doves 
roosted  and  nested  in  it,  and  within  it  was 
cold  even  in  midsummer,  and  dark  always  as  a 
vault.  It  was  dedicated  to  St.  Jerome,  and  was  a 
world  too  wide  for  the  shrunken  band  of  believers 
who  came  to  worship  in  it;  there  was  a  high, 
dark  altar  said  to  have  been  painted  by  Ribera, 
and  nothing  else  that  spoke  in  any  way  of  art 
except  the  capitals  of  its  pillars  and  the  Roman 
mosaics  of  its  floor. 

The  Longobardo  bell-tower  was  of  vast  height 
and  strength;  within  it  were  various  chambers, 
and  these  chambers  had  served  through  many  ages 
as  muniment-rooms.  There  were  innumerable 
documents  of  many  different  epochs,  almost  all  in 
Latin,  a  few  in  Greek.  Don  Silverio,  who  was  a 
62 


The  Waters  of  Edera  63 

fine  classic  as  well  as  a  learned  archaeologist,  spent 
all  his  lonely  and  cold  winter  evenings  in  the  study 
of  these  early  chronicles,  his  oil  lamp  burning  pale 
and  low,  his  little  white  dog  lying  on  his  knees. 

These  manuscripts  gave  him  great  trouble,  and 
were  in  many  parts  almost  unintelligible,  in  oth- 
ers almost  effaced  by  damp,  in  others  again 
gnawed  by  rats  and  mice.  But  he  was  interested 
in  his  labours  and  in  his  subject,  and  after  several 
years  of  work  on  them,  he  was  able  to  make  out  a 
consecutive  history  of  the  Vald'edera,  and  he  was 
satisfied  that  the  peasant  of  the  Terra  Vergine  had 
been  directly  descended  from  the  feudal-lords 
of  Ruscino.  That  pittance  of  land  by  the  water- 
side under  the  shadow  of  the  ruined  citadel  was 
all  which  remained  of  the  great  fief  to  the  youth 
in  whose  veins  ran  the  blood  of  men  who  had 
given  princes,  and  popes,  and  cardinals,  and  cap- 
tains of  condottieri,  and  patrons  of  art,  and  con- 
querors of  revolted  provinces,  to  the  Italy  of  old 
from  the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth  century  to 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth.  For  three  hundred  years 
the  Tor'alba  had  been  lords  there,  owning  all 
their  eyes  could  reach  from  mountain  to  sea ;  then 
after  long  siege  the  walled  town  and  their  adja- 
cent stronghold  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  he- 
reditary foes  whose  forces  had  been  united  against 
them.  Fire  and  steel  had  done  their  worst,  and 
only  a  month-old  child  had  escaped  from  the  burn- 


64  The  Waters  of  Edera 

ing  Rocca,  being  saved  in  a  boat  laden  with  reeds 
at  anchor  in  the  river,  and  hidden  by  a  faithful 
vassal.  The  child  had  grown  to  manhood  and 
had  lived  to  old  age,  leading  a  peasant's  life  on  the 
banks  of  the  Edera ;  the  name  had  been  mutilated 
in  common  usage  amongst  those  who  spoke  only 
the  dialect  of  the  province,  and  for  three  more  cen- 
turies father  and  son  had  succeeded  each  other, 
working  for  their  daily  bread  where  their  ances- 
tors had  defied  Borgia  and  Delia  Rovere,  and 
Feltrio,  and  Malatesta;  the  gaunt  dark  shade  of 
the  dismantled  citadel  lying  athwart  their  field 
between  them  and  the  setting  sun. 

Should  he  tell  Adone  this  or  not? 

Would  the  knowledge  of  his  ancestry  put  a 
thorn  in  the  boy's  contented  heart?  Would  it  act 
as  a  spur  to  higher  things,  or  be  merely  as  the  use- 
less sting  of  a  nettle  ? 

Who  could  say? 

Don  Silverio  remembered  the  gorgeous  dreams 
of  his  own  youth ;  and  what  had  been  their  issue  ? 

At  fifty  years  old  he  was  buried  in  a  deserted 
village,  never  hearing  from  year's  end  to  year's 
end,  one  word  of  friendship  or  phrase  of  culture. 

Would  it  be  well  or  would  it  be  wrong  to  dis- 
turb that  tranquil  acquiescence  in  a  humble  des- 
tiny? He  could  not  decide.  He  dared  not  take 
upon  himself  so  much  responsibility.  "  In  doubt 


The  Waters  of  Edera  65 

do  nothing"  has  been  the  axiom  of  many  wise 
men.  The  remembrance  of  the  maxim  closed  his 
lips.  He  had  himself  been  in  early  manhood  pas- 
sionately ambitious;  he  was  only  a  priest,  but  of 
priests  are  made  the  Gregorio,  the  Bonifazio,  the 
Leone,  of  the  Papal  throne;  to  the  dreams  of  a 
seminarist  nothing  is  impossible.  But  Adone 
had  no  such  dreams ;  he  was  as  satisfied  with  his 
lot  as  any  young  steer  which  wants  nothing  more 
than  the  fair  fresh  fields  of  its  birth. 

But  one  day  as  he  was  sitting  with  the  boy,  then 
fifteen  years  old,  on  the  south  bank  of  the  Edera, 
the  spirit  moved  him  and  he  spake.  It  was  the 
day  of  San  Benedetto,  when  the  swallows  come. 
The  grass  was  full  of  pink  lychnis  and  yellow  but- 
tercups. A  strong  east  wind  was  blowing  from 
the  sea.  A  number  of  martins,  true  to  the  pro- 
verb, were  circling  gaily  above  the  stream.  The 
water,  reflecting  the  brilliant  hues  of  the  heavens, 
was  hurrying  on  its  seaward  way,  swollen  by  re- 
cent rains  and  hastened  by  a  strong  wind  blowing 
from  the  eastern  mountains. 

The  lands  of  the  Terra  Vergine  lay  entirely  on 
the  south-east  bank  of  the  river,  and  covered  many 
acres,  of  which  some  was  moorland  still.  Almost 
opposite  to  it  was  the  one-arched  stone  bridge, 
attributed  to  Theodoric,  and  on  the  northern  bank 
was  the  ruined  Rocca  towering  above  the  trees 


66  The  Waters  of  Edera 

which  had  grown  up  around  it;  whilst  hidden  by 
it  and  by  the  remains  of  the  fortifications  was  that 
which  was  now  the  mere  village  of  Ruscino. 

"Listen,  Adone!"  he  said  in  his  deep,  melo- 
dious voice,  grave  and  sweet  as  a  mass  of  Pales- 
trina.  "Listen,  and  I  will  tell  you  the  tale  of 
yonder  donjon  and  village,  and  of  the  valley  of 
the  Edera  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  make  it 
out  for  myself." 

According  to  the  writers  whose  manuscripts 
he  had  discovered  the  town  of  Ruscino,  like  Cre- 
mona, had  existed  before  the  siege  of  Troy,  that 
is,  six  hundred  years  before  the  foundation  of 
Rome.  Of  this  there  was  no  proof  except  tradi- 
tion, but  the  ruins  of  the  walls  and  the  tombs  by 
the  riverside  and  in  the  fields  proved  that  it  had 
been  an  Etruscan  city,  and  of  some  considerable 
extent  and  dignity,  in  those  remote  ages. 

"  The  foundations  of  the  Rocca,"  he  continued, 
"  were  probably  part  of  a  great  stronghold  raised 
by  the  Gauls,  who  undoubtedly  conquered  the 
whole  of  this  valley  at  the  time  when  they  settled 
themselves  in  what  is  now  the  Marches,  and 
founded  Senegallia.  It  was  visited  by  Asdrubal, 
and  burned  by  Alaric;  then  occupied  by  the  Greek 
free  lances  of  Justinian ;  in  the  time  of  the  Prank- 
ish victories,  in  common  with  greater  places,  it 
was  forced  to  swear  allegiance  to  the  first  papal 
Adrian.  After  that  it  had  been  counted  as  one  of 


The  Waters  of  Edera  67 

the  fiefs  comprised  in  the  possessions  of  the  Penta- 
polis;  and  later  on,  when  the  Saracens  ravaged 
the  shores  of  the  Adriatic,  they  had  come  up 
the  Vald'edera  and  pillaged  and  burned  again. 
Gregory  the  Ninth  gave  the  valley  to  the  family 
of  its  first  feudal  lords,  the  Tor'alba  in  recompense 
for  military  service,  and  they,  out  of  the  remains 
of  the  Gallic,  Etruscan,  and  Roman  towns  rebuilt 
Ruscino  and  raised  the  Rocca  on  the  ruins  of  the 
castle  of  the  Gauls.  There,  though  at  feud  many  a 
time  with  their  foes,  the  Delia  Rovere,  the  Mala- 
testa,  and  the  Dukes  of  Urbino,  they  held  their 
own  successfully,  favoured  usually  by  Rome,  and 
for  three  centuries  grew  in  force  and  in  posses- 
sions. But  they  lost  the  favour  of  Rome  by  their 
haughtiness  and  independence ;  and  under  pretext 
that  they  merited  punishment,  Cesare  Borgia 
brought  troops  of  mercenaries  against  them,  and 
after  a  fierce  conflict  in  the  valley  (the  terrible 
battle  of  which  the  villagers  preserved  the  mem- 
ory) the  town  was  besieged,  and  sacked. 

"  After  this  battle,  which  must  have  taken 
place  on  yonder  moor,  to  the  north-west,  for  the 
assailants  had  crossed  the  Apennines,  the  Tor'- 
alba and  the  remnant  of  men  remaining  to  them 
retreated  within  the  walls  of  Ruscino. 

"  The  whole  place  and  the  citadel  were  burn- 
ing, set  on  fire  by  order  of  Borgia.  The 
church  alone  was  spared,  and  the  dead  men  were 


68  The  Waters  of  Edera 

as  thick  as  stones  on  the  walls,  and  in  the  streets, 
and  in  the  nave  of  the  church,  and  on  the  steps  of 
the  houses.  This  river  was  choked  with  corpses, 
and  dark  with  blood.  The  black  smoke  towered 
to  the  sky  in  billows  like  a  sea.  The  mercenaries 
swarmed  over  the  bastions  and  violated  the 
women,  and  cut  off  their  breasts  and  threw  their 
bodies  down  into  the  stream  and  their  children 
after  them.  The  Lady  of  Tor'alba,  valiant  as 
Caterina  Sforza,  was  the  first  slain.  The  whole 
place  was  given  up  to  flame  and  carnage,  and 
the  great  captains  were  as  helpless  as  dead  oxen. 
They  were  all  slain  amongst  their  troopers  and 
their  vassals,  and  their  bodies  were  burnt  when 
the  fortress  was  fired. 

"  Only  one  little  child  escaped  the  massacre,  a 
month-old  babe,  son  of  the  Marquis  of  Tor'alba, 
who  was  hidden  by  a  faithful  servant  amongst 
the  reeds  of  the  Edera  in  a  basket.  This  servant 
was  the  only  male  who  escaped  slaughter. 

"  The  river  rushes  were  more  merciful  than 
man,  they  kept  the  little  new-born  lordling  safe 
until  his  faithful  vassal,  under  cover  of  the  night, 
when  the  assailants  were  drunk  and  stupid  with 
license  gratified,  could  take  him  to  a  poor  woman 
to  be  suckled  in  a  cottage  farther  down  the  river. 
How  he  grew  up  I  know  not,  but  certain  it  is  that 
thirty  years  later  one  Federigo  Tor'alba  was  liv- 
ing where  you  live,  and  the  glebe  of  the  Terra 


The  Waters  of  Edera  69 

Vergine  was  his  own,  and  your  house  and  land 
have  never  changed  hands  or  title  since;  only 
your  own  name  has  been  truncated,  as  often  hap- 
pens in  the  speech  of  the  people.  How  this  land 
called  the  Terra  Vergine  was  first  obtained  I  can- 
not say;  the  vassal  may  have  saved  some  gold  or 
jewels  which  belonged  to  his  masters,  and  have 
purchased  these  acres,  or  the  land  may  have  been 
taken  up  and  put  gradually  into  cultivation  with- 
out any  legal  right  to  it;  of  this  there  is  no  ex- 
planation, no  record.  But  from  that  time  the 
mighty  lordship  of  Tor'alba  has  been  extinct,  and 
scarcely  exists  now  even  in  local  tradition;  al- 
though their  effigies  are  on  their  tombs,  and  the 
story  of  their  reign  can  be  deciphered  by  any  one 
who  can  read  a  sixteenth-century  manuscript,  as 
you  might  do  yourself,  my  son,  had  you  been  dili- 
gent." 

Adone  was  silent.  He  had  listened  with  atten- 
tion, as  he  did  to  everything  which  was  said  or 
read  to  him  by  Don  Silverio.  But  he  was  not 
astonished,  because  he  had  often  heard,  though 
vaguely,  the  legend  of  his  descent. 

"  Of  what  use  is  it  ?  "  he  said,  as  he  sat,  moving 
the  bright  water  with  his  bare  slim  feet.  "  Noth- 
ing will  bring  it  all  back." 

"  It  should  serve  some  great  end,"  said  Don 
Silverio,  not  knowing  very  well  what  he  meant  or 
to  what  he  desired  to  move  the  young  man's  mind. 


70  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  Nobility  of  blood  should  make  the  hands 
cleaner,  the  heart  lighter,  the  aims  finer." 

Adone  "had  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  We  are  all  equal !  "  he  answered. 

"  We  are  not  all  equal,"  the  priest  said  curtly. 
"  There  is  no  equality  in  nature.  Are  there  even 
two  pebbles  alike  in  the  bed  of  the  river  ?  " 

Don  Silverio,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  could 
have  willingly  let  escape  him  some  unholy  word. 
It  incensed  him  that  he  could  not  arouse  in  the 
boy  any  of  that  interest  and  excitement  which 
had  moved  his  own  feelings  so  strongly  as  he  had 
spent  his  spare  evenings  poring  over  the  crabbed 
characters,  and  the  dust-weighted  vellum  of  the 
charred  and  mutilated  archives  discovered  by  him 
in  a  secret  closet  in  the  bell-tower  of  his  church. 
With  infinite  toil,  patience,  and  ability  he  had  de- 
ciphered the  Latin  of  rolls,  registers,  letters, 
chronicles,  so  damaged  by  water,  fire,  and  the 
teeth  of  rats  and  mice,  that  it  required  all  an 
archaeologist's  ingenuity  and  devotion  to  make 
out  any  sense  from  them.  Summer  days  and 
winter  nights  had  found  him  poring  over  the 
enigma  of  these  documents,  and  now,  when  he 
had  conquered  and  revealed  their  secret,  he,  who 
was  most  concerned  in  it,  was  no  more  stirred  by 
curiosity  or  pride  than  if  he  had  been  one  of  the 
big  tawny  owls  who  had  watched  him  at  his  la- 
bours in  the  dusk  of  the  belfry. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  7 1 

.,  Don  Silverio  was  a  learned  man  and  a  holy 
man,  and  should  have  despised  such  vanities,  but 
an  historic  past  had  great  seduction  for  him;  a 
militant  race  fascinated  him  against  his  con- 
science, and  aristocracy  allured  him  despite  all  his 
better  judgment :  it  seemed  to  him  that  if  he  had 
learned  that  he  had  come  from  a  knightly  gens 
such  as  this  of  the  Tor'alba,  he  would  have  been 
more  strongly  moved  to  self-glorification  than 
would  have  become  a  servant  of  the  Church.  He 
himself  had  no  knowledge  even  of  his  own 
near  parentage;  he  had  been  a  forsaken  child, 
left  one  dark  autumn  night  in  the  iron  cra- 
dle at  the  gates  of  a  foundling  hospital  in 
Reggio  Calabrese.  His  names  had  been  bestowed 
on  him  by  the  chaplain  of  the  institution;  and 
his  education  had  been  given  him  by  an  old  noble- 
man of  the  town,  attracted  by  his  appearance  and 
intelligence  as  a  child.  He  was  now  fifty  years 
of  age ;  and  he  had  never  known  anything  of  kith 
and  kin,  or  of  the  mingled  sweetness  and  impor- 
tunity of  any  human  tie. 

Adone  sat  silent,  looking  up  at  the  fortress  of 
his  forefathers.  He  was  more  moved  than  his 
words  showed. 

"If  we  were  lords  of  the  land  and  the  town 
and  the  people,  we  were  also  lords  of  the  river," 
was  what  he  was  thinking;  and  that  thought 
moved  him  to  strong  pride  and  pleasure,  for  he 


72  The  Waters  of  Edera 

loved  the  river  with  a  great  love,  only  equalled  by 
that  which  he  felt  for  his  mother. 

"They  were  lords  of  the  river?"  he  asked 
aloud. 

"  Undoubtedly,"  answered  the  priest.  "  It  was 
one  of  the  highways  of  the  province  from  east  to 
west  and  vice  versa  in  that  time ;  the  signoria  of 
this  Rocca  took  toll,  kept  the  fords  and  bridges 
and  ferries;  none  could  pass  up  and  down 
under  Ruscino  without  being  seen  by  the  sentinels 
on  the  ramparts  here.  The  Edera  was  different 
then;  more  navigable,  perhaps  less  beautiful. 
Rivers  change  like  nations.  There  have  been 
landslips  which  have  altered  its  course  and  made 
its  torrents.  In  some  parts  it  is  shallower,  in 
others  deeper.  The  woods  which  enclosed  its 
course  then  have  been  largely  felled,  though  not 
wholly.  Sand  has  been  dug  from  it  incessantly, 
and  rocks  have  fallen  across  it.  As  you  know,  no 
boats  or  barges  which  draw  any  depth  of  water 
can  ascend  or  descend  it  now  without  being 
towed  by  horses ;  and  in  some  parts,  as  here,  it  is 
too  uncertain  in  its  depth,  too  devious  in  its 
course,  too  precipitous  in  its  fall  for  even  small 
boats  to  adventure  themselves  upon  it:  its  shoals 
of  lilies  can  blossom  unmolested  where  its  surface 
is  level.  Yes;  undoubtedly,  the  lords  of  Ruscino 
were  also  lords  of  the  Edera,  from  its  mouth  to 
its  source;  and  their  river  formed  at  once  their 


The  Waters  of  Ed  era  73 

strongest  defence  and  their  weakest  point.  It 
was  difficult  sufficiently  to  guard  so  many  miles  of 
water;  above  all  because,  as  I  say,  its  course  was 
so  much  clearer,  and  its  depth  so  much  greater, 
that  a  flotilla  of  rafts  or  cutters  could  ascend  it 
from  its  mouth  as  far  as  this  town  in  the  Middle 
Ages;  in  fact,  more  than  once,  corsairs  from  the 
Levant  and  from  Morocco  did  so  ascend  it,  and 
though  they  were  driven  back  by  the  culverins  of 
the  citadel,  they  every  time  carried  off  to  slavery 
some  of  the  youths  and  maidens  of  the  plain." 

Adone  gazed  across  the  river  to  the  moss- 
grown  walls  which  had  once  been  fortifications 
still  visible  on  the  side  of  the  hill,  and  to  the 
frowning  donjon,  the  blackened  towers,  the 
ruined  bastions,  of  what  had  been  once  the  Rocca, 
with  the  amber  light  and  rosy  clouds  of  the  un- 
seen sun  behind  them. 

"  Teach  me  Latin,  your  reverence,"  was  all  he 
said. 

"  I  have  always  offered  to  do  so,"  said  Don  Sil- 
verio. 

Adone  was  again  silent,  swinging  his  slender 
brown  feet  in  the  water,  and  looking  always  up- 
ward at  the  evening  sky  beyond  the  great  round 
shape  of  the  dismantled  fortress. 

Adone  learned  some  Latin  with  much  difficulty, 
studying  hard  in  his  evening  leisure  in  the  win- 
ters, and  with  time  he  could  decipher  for  himself, 


74  The  Waters  of  Edera 

with  assistance  from  Don  Silverio,  the  annals  of 
the  Tor'alba;  and  he  saw  that  it  was  as  certain  as 
anything  grown  over  with  the  lichens  and  cob- 
webs of  time  can  be  that  he  himself  was  the  last  of 
the  race. 

"Your  father  used  to  say  something  of  the 
sort,"  his  mother  said ;  "  but  he  had  only  heard 
it  piecemeal  from  old  people,  and  never  heard 
enough  to  put  the  pieces  together  as  you  have 
done.  '  What  does  it  matter  either  ? '  he  used  to 
say;  and  he  said  those  great  lords  had  been  cut- 
throats on  the  land  and  robbers  on  the  river.  For 
your  father's  father  had  worn  the  red  shirt  in  his 
youth,  as  I  have  told  you  often,  and  thought  but 
little  of  lords  and  princes." 

But  Adone  was  different;  the  past  allured  him 
with  the  fascination  which  it  has  for  poets  and 
scholars;  he  was  neither  of  these,  except  in  a 
vague,  unconscious  way;  but  his  imagination  was 
strong  and  fertile  once  aroused ;  the  past,  as  sug- 
gested to  him  by  the  vicar,  by  degrees  became  to 
him  a  living  thing  and  nearer  than  the  present,  as 
it  is  to  scholars  who  are  also  poets.  He  was 
neither  scholar  nor  poet;  but  he  loved  to  muse 
upon  that  far-off  time  when  his  forefathers  had 
been  lords  of  the  land  and  of  the  water. 

He  did  not  want  the  grandeur,  he  did  not  envy 
the  power  which  they  had  possessed;  but  he 


The  Waters  of  Edera  75 

wished  that,  like  them,  he  could  own  the  Edera 
from  its  rise  in  the  hills  to  its  fall  into  the  sea. 

"Oh,  dear  river! "  he  said  to  it  tenderly.  "  I 
love  you.  I  love  you  as  the  dragon-flies  do,  as 
the  wagtails  do,  as  the  water  voles  do ;  I  am  you 
and  you  are  me.  When  I  lean  over  you  and 
smile,  you  smile  back  to  me.  You  are  beautiful 
in  the  night  and  the  morning,  when  you  mirror 
the  moon  and  play  with  the  sunbeams,  when  you 
are  angry  under  the  wind,  and  when  you  are  at 
peace  in  the  heat  of  the  noon.  You  have  been 
purple  with  the  blood  of  my  people,  and  now  you 
are  green  and  fresh  as  the  leaves  of  the  young 
vine.  You  have  been  black  with  powder  and 
battle,  now  you  are  fair  with  the  hue  of  the  sky 
and  the  blue  of  the  myosotis.  You  are  the  same 
river  as  you  were  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  yet 
you  only  come  down  to-day  from  the  high  hills, 
young  and  strong,  and  ever  renewing.  What  is 
the  life  of  man  beside  yours?  " 

That  was  the  ode  which  he  sang  in  the  dialect 
of  the  province,  and  the  stream  washed  his  feet 
as  he  sang;  and  with  his  breath  on  his  long  reed 
flute — the  same  flute  as  youths  have  made  and 
used  here  ever  since  the  days  of  Apollo  Cythar- 
cedes — he  copied  the  singing  of  the  river,  which 
piped  as  it  ran,  like  birds  at  dawn. 

But  this  was  only  at  such  times  as  daybreak  or 
early  night  when  he  was  alone. 


j6  The  Waters  of  Edera 

There  were  but  a  few  people  within  the  ruined 
walls  of  Ruscino ;  most  of  the  houses  were  tenant- 
less  and  tottering  to  their  fall.  A  few  old  bent 
men  and  weather-beaten  women  and  naked  chil- 
dren climbed  its  steep  lanes  and  slept  under  its  red- 
brown  roofs,  bawled  to  each  other  from  its  deep 
arched  doorways  to  tell  of  death  or  birth,  and 
gathered  dandelion  leaves  upon  its  ramparts  to 
cure  their  shrunken  and  swollen  bladders.  He 
knew  them  every  one,  he  was  familiar  with  and 
kind  to  them;  but  he  was  aloof  from  them  by 
temperament  and  thought,  and  he  showed  them 
his  soul  no  more  than  the  night  birds  in  the 
towers  showed  their  tawny  breasts  and  eyes  of 
topaz  to  the  hungry  and  ragged  fowls  which 
scratched  amongst  the  dust  and  refuse  on  the 
stones  in  the  glare  of  day. 

"  //  bel  Ad  one! "  sighed  matrons  and  the  maid- 
ens of  the  scattered  farms  and  the  old  gloomy  cas- 
tellated granges  which  here  and  there,  leagues 
distant  from  one  another,  broke  the  green  and 
silent  monotony  of  the  vast  historic  country 
whose  great  woods  sloped  from  hill  to  plain.  But 
to  these,  too,  he  was  indifferent,  though  they  had 
the  stern  and  solid  beauty  of  the  Latium  women 
on  their  broad  low  brows,  their  stately  busts,  their 
ox-like  eyes,  their  shapely  feet  and  limbs;  and 
often,  joined  to  that,  the  red-gold  hair  and  the 
fair  skin  of  the  Adriatic  type.  As  they  bound 


The  Waters  of  Edera  77 

the  sheaves,  and  bore  the  water-jars,  and  went 
in  groups  through  the  seeding  grass  to  chapel, 
or  fountain,  or  shrine,  they  had  the  free,  frank 
grace  of  an  earlier  time;  just  such  as  these 
had  carried  the  votive  doves  to  the  altars  of 
Venus  and  chaunted  by  the  waters  of  the  Edera 
the  worship  of  Isis  and  her  son.  But  to  Adone 
they  had  no  charm.  What  did  he  desire  or  dream 
of?  Himself  he  could  not  have  said.  Perhaps 
they  were  too  warm ;  it  was  certain  that  they  left 
him  cold. 

Sometimes  he  leaned  over  the  river  and  looked 
longingly  into  its  depths. 

"  Show  me  the  woman  I  shall  love,"  he  said  to 
the  water,  but  it  hastened  on,  glad,  tumultuous, 
unheeding;  and  he  only  saw  the  reflection  of  the 
white  jonquils  or  the  golden  sword  rush  on  its 
banks. 


V 

FRUITS  ripen  quickly  in  these  provinces,  and 
children  become  women  in  a  summer  hour;  but 
with  Nerina,  through  want  and  suffering  and 
hunger,  physical  growth  had  been  slow,  and  she 
remained  long  a  child  in  many  things  and  many 
ways.  Only  in  her  skill  and  strength  for  work 
was  she  older  than  her  actual  age. 

She  could  hoe,  and  reap,  and  sow :  she  could 
row  and  steer  the  boat  amongst  the  shallows  as 
well  as  any  man ;  she  could  milk  the  cow,  and  put 
the  steers  in  the  waggon;  she  could  cord,  hemp, 
and  weave,  and  spin  either ;  she  could  carry  heavy 
weights  balanced  on  her  head ;  she  was  strong  and 
healthy  and  never  ill,  and  with  it  all  she  was 
happy.  Her  large  bright  eyes  were  full  of  con- 
tentment, and  her  rosy  mouth  often  smiled  out  of 
the  mere  gladness  of  living.  Her  senses  were 
still  asleep  and  her  young  soul  wanted  nothing 
more  than  life  gave  her. 

"  You  can  earn  your  bread  anywhere  now,  little 
one,"  said  Clelia  Alba  to  her  one  day,  when  she 
had  been  there  three  years. 

The  girl  shrank  as  under  a  blow;  her  brown 
78 


The  Waters  of  Edera  79 

and  rosy  face  grew  colourless.    "  Do  you  wish  me 
to  go  away?  "  she  said  humbly. 

"  No,  no,"  said  Clelia,  although  that  was  what 
she  did  desire.  "  No,  not  while  I  live.  But 
should  I  die,  you  could  not  stay  here  with  my 
son." 

"  Why  ?  "  said  Nerina.  She  did  not  under- 
stand why. 

Clelia  hesitated. 

"  You  ought  to  feel  that  yourself,"  she  said 
harshly.  "  Young  men  and  young  maids  do  not 
dwell  together,  unless " 

"  Unless  what?  "  asked  Nerina. 

"  You  are  a  simpleton  indeed,  or  you  are 
shamming,"  thought  Adone's  mother;  but  aloud 
she  only  said :  "  It  is  not  in  our  usage." 

"'  But  you  will  not  die,"  said  Nerina  anxiously. 
"Why  should  you  think  of  dying,  madonna? 
You  are  certainly  old,  but  you  are  not  so  very, 
very  old." 

Clelia  smiled. 

"  You  do  not  flatter,  child.  So  much  the  better. 
Run  away  and  drive  in  those  fowls.  They  are 
making  havoc  in  the  beanfield." 

She  could  not  feel  otherwise  than  tenderly  to- 
wards this  young  creature,  always  so  obedient, 
so  tractable,  so  contented,  so  grateful;  but  she 
would  willingly  have  placed  her  elsewhere  could 
she  have  done  so  with  a  clear  conscience. 


8o  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  My  son  will  never  do  ill  by  any  creature  un- 
der his  roof,"  she  thought.  "  But  still  youth  is 
youth;  and  the  girl  grows." 

"  We  must  dower  her  and  mate  her;  eh,  your 
reverence  ?  "  she  said  to  Don  Silverio  when  he 
passed  by  later  in  that  day. 

"  Willingly,"  he  answered.  "  But  to  whom  ? 
To  the  owls  or  the  cats  at  Ruscino  ?  " 

In  himself  he  thought,  "  She  is  as  straight  and 
as  slight  as  a  chestnut  wand,  but  she  is  as  strong. 
When  you  shall  try  to  bend  her  where  she  shall 
not  want  to  go  you  will  not  succeed." 

For  he  knew  the  character  of  Nerina  in  the 
confessional  better  than  Clelia  Alba  judged  of  it 
in  her  house. 

"  It  was  not  wise  to  bring  her  here,"  he  added 
aloud.  "  But  having  committed  that  error  it 
would  be  unfair  to  charge  the  child  with  the  pain- 
ful payment  of  it.  You  are  a  just  woman,  my 
good  friend;  you  must  see  that." 

Clelia  saw  it  clearly,  for  she  never  tried  to  trick 
her  conscience. 

"  Your  reverence  mistakes  me,"  she  answered. 
"  I  would  not  give  her  to  any  but  a  good  man 
and  a  good  home." 

"They  are  not  common,"  said  Don  Silverio. 
"  Nor  are  they  as  easy  to  find  as  flies  in  sum- 
mer." 

What  was  the  marriage  of  the  poor  for  the 


The  Waters  of  Edera  8 1 

woman  ?  What  did  it  bring  ?  What  did  it  mean  ? 
The  travail  of  child-bearing,  the  toil  of  the  fields, 
the  hardship  of  constant  want,  the  incessant 
clamour  on  her  ear  of  unsatisfied  hunger,  the 
painful  rearing  of  sons  whom  the  State  takes 
away  from  her  as  soon  as  they  are  of  use,  pain- 
ful ending  of  life  on  grudged  crusts  as  a  burden 
to  others  on  a  hearth  no  longer  her  own.  This 
stripped  of  glamour  is  the  lot  nine  times  out  of 
ten  of  the  female  peasant — a  creature  of  burden 
like  the  cow  she  yokes,  an  animal  valued  only  in 
her  youth  and  her  prime ;  in  old  age  or  in  sickness 
like  the  stricken  and  barren  goat,  who  has  nought 
but  its  skin  and  its  bones. 

Poor  little  Nerina ! 

As  he  went  home  he  saw  her  cutting  fodder  for 
a  calf;  she  was  kneeling  in  a  haze  of  rose  colour 
made  by  the  many  blossoms  of  the  orchis  maculata 
which  grew  there.  The  morning  light  sparkled 
in  the  wet  grass.  She  got  up  as  she  saw  him  cross 
the  field,  dropped  her  curtsey  low  with  a  smile, 
then  resumed  her  work,  the  dew,  the  sun,  the 
sweet  fresh  scents  shed  on  her  like  a  benison. 

"  Poor  little  soul,"  thought  Don  Silverio. 
"  Poor  little  soul !  Has  Adone  no  eyes  ?  " 

Adone  had  eyes,  but  they  saw  other  things  than 
a  little  maiden  in  the  meadow-grass. 

To  her  he  was  a  deity;  she  believed  in  him  and 
worshipped  him  with  the  strongest  faith  as  a  little 


82  The  Waters  of  Edera 

sister  might  have  clone.  She  would  have  fought 
for  him  like  a  little  mastiff;  she  would  have  suf- 
fered in  his  service  with  rapture  and  pride;  she 
was  as  vigilant  for  his  interests  as  if  she  were 
fidelity  incarnated.  She  watched  over  all  that  be- 
longed to  him,  and  the  people  of  Ruscino  feared 
her  more  than  they  feared  Pierino  the  watch-dog. 
Woe-betided  the  hapless  wight  who  made  free 
with  the  ripe  olives,  or  the  ripe  grapes,  with  the 
fig  or  the  peach  or  the  cherry  which  grew  on 
Adone's  lands;  it  seemed  to  such  marauders  that 
she  had  a  thousand  eyes  and  lightning  in  her  feet. 

One  day,  when  she  had  dealt  such  vigorous 
blows  with  a  blackthorn  stick  on  the  back  of  a 
lad  who  had  tried  to  enter  the  fowl-house,  that  he 
fell  down  and  shrieked  for  pardon,  Adone  re- 
proved her.  "  Remember  they  are  very  poor, 
Nerina,"  he  said  to  her.  "  So  were  your  own 
folks,  you  say." 

"  I  know  they  are  poor,"  replied  Nerina.  She 
held  to  her  opinions.  "  But  when  they  ask,  you 
always  give.  Therefore  it  is  vile  to  rob  you. 
Besides,"  she  added,  "  if  you  go  on  and  let  them 
steal  they  do  not  thank  you;  and  they  will  steal 
and  steal  and  steal  till  you  will  have  nothing  left." 

Whatever  she  saw,  whatever  she  heard,  she 
told  Adone;  and  he  gave  ear  to  her  because  she 
was  not  a  chatterer,  but  was  usually  of  few  words. 
AH  her  intelligence  was  spent  in  the  defence  and 


The  Waters  of  Edera  83 

in  the  culture  of  the  Terra  Vergine ;  she  did  not 
know  her  alphabet,  and  did  not  wish  to  do  so;  but 
she  had  the  quickest  of  ears,  the  keenest  of  eyes, 
the  brightest  of  brains. 

One  morning  she  came  running  to  him  where 
he  was  cutting  barley. 

"  Adone !  Adone !  "  she  cried  breathlessly, 
"  there  were  strange  men  by  the  river  to-day." 

"  Indeed,"  said  Adone  astonished,  although 
strangers  were  never  seen  there.  Ruscino  was 
near  no  highroad,  and  the  river  had  long  ceased 
to  be  navigable. 

"  They  asked  me  questions,  but  I  put  my  hands 
to  my  ears  and  shook  my  head;  they  thought  I 
was  deaf." 

"  What  sort  of  men  were  they?  "  he  asked  with 
more  attention,  for  there  were  still  those  who 
lived  by  violence  up  in  the  forests  which  overhung 
the  valley  of  the  Edera. 

"  How  do  I  know  ?  They  were  clothed  in  long 
woollen  bed-gowns,  and  they  had  boots  on  their 
feet,  and  on  their  heads  hats  shaped  like  kitchen- 
pans." 

Adone  smiled.  He  saw  men  from  a  town,  or 
country  fellows  who  aped  such  men,  with  a  con- 
tempt which  was  born  at  once  of  that  artistic 
sense  of  fitness  which  was  in  him,  and  of  his  ad- 
herence to  the  customs  and  habits  of  his  province. 
The  city-bred  and  city-clothed  man  looked  to  him 


84  The  Waters  of  Edera 

a  grotesque  and  helpless  creature,  much  sillier 
than  an  ape. 

"  That  sounds  like  citizens  or  townsfolk.  What 
did  they  say  ?  " 

"  I  could  not  understand ;  but  they  spoke  of 
the  water,  I  think,  for  they  pointed  to  it  and  said 
a  great  deal  which  I  did  not  understand,  and 
seemed  to  measure  the  banks,  and  took  your  punt 
and  threw  a  chain  into  the  water  in  places." 

"  Took  castings  ?  Used  my  punt  ?  That  is 
odd!  I  have  never  seen  a  stranger  in  my  life  by 
the  Edera.  Were  they  anglers?  " 

"  No." 

"Or  sportsmen?" 

"  They  had  no  guns." 

"  How  many  were  they  ?  " 

"  Three.  They  went  away  up  the  river  talk- 
ing." 

"  Did  they  cross  the  bridge?  " 

"  No.  They  were  not  shepherds,  or  labourers, 
or  priests,"  said  Nerina.  In  these  classes  of  men 
her  own  acquaintance  was  confined. 

"  Painters,  perhaps ! "  said  Adone ;  but  no 
artists  were  ever  seen  there;  the  existence  even 
of  the  valley  was  scarcely  known,  except  to  to- 
pographers. 

"  What  are  painters  ?  "  said  Nerina. 

"  Men  who  sit  and  stare  and  then  make 
splashes  of  colour." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  85 

"  No ;  they  did  not  do  that." 

"  It  is  strange." 

He  felt  vaguely  uneasy  that  any  had  come  near 
the  water;  as  a  lover  dislikes  the  pressure  of  a 
crowd  about  his  beloved  in  a  street,  so  he  disliked 
the  thought  of  foreign  eyes  resting  on  the  Edera. 
That  they  should  have  used  his  little  punt,  always 
left  amongst  the  sedges,  seemed  to  him  a  most 
offensive  and  unpardonable  action. 

He  went  to  the  spot  where  the  intruders  had 
been  seen,  but  there  was  no  trace  of  them,  except 
that  the  wet  sand  bore  footprints  of  persons  who 
had,  as  she  had  said  of  them,  worn  boots.  He 
followed  these  footprints  for  some  mile  or  more 
up  the  edge  of  the  stream,  but  there  he  lost  them 
from  sight;  they  had  passed  on  to  the  grass  of  a 
level  place,  and  the  dry  turf,  cropped  by  sheep  to 
its  roots,  told  no  tales.  Near  this  place  was  a 
road  used  by  cattle  drivers  and  mules;  it  crossed 
the  heather  for  some  thousand  yards,  then 
plunged  into  the  woods,  and  so  up  over  the  hills 
to  the  town  of  Teramo,  thirty-five  kilometres 
away.  It  was  a  narrow,  rough,  steep  road,  wholly 
unfit  for  vehicles  of  any  kind  more  tender  than  the 
rude  ox-treggia,  slow  as  a  snail,  with  rounds  of  a 
tree-trunk  for  its  wheels  and  seldom  used  except 
by  country  folks. 

He  would  have  asked  Don  Silverio  if  he  had 
heard  or  seen  anything  of  any  strangers,  but  the 


86  The  Waters  of  Edera 

priest  was  away  that  day  at  one  of  the  lonely 
moorland  cabins  comprised  in  his  parish  of  Rus- 
cino,  where  an  old  man,  who  had  been  a  great  sin- 
ner in  his  past,  was  at  his  last  gasp,  and  his  sons 
and  grandsons  and  great-grandchildren  all  left 
him  to  meet  his  end  as  he  might. 

It  was  a  fine  day,  and  they  had  their  grain 
to  get  in,  and  even  the  women  were  busy.  They 
set  a  stoup  of  water  by  him,  and  put  some  in  his 
nostrils,  and  shut  the  door  to  keep  out  the  flies. 
It  was  no  use  to  stay  there  they  thought.  If  you 
helped  a  poor  soul  to  give  up  the  ghost  by  a  hand 
on  his  mouth,  or  an  elbow  in  his  stomach,  you  got 
into  trouble;  it  was  safer  to  leave  him  alone, 
when  he  was  a-dying. 

Don  Silverio  had  given  the  viaticum  to  the  old 
man  the  night  before,  not  thinking  he  would  out- 
live the  night.  He  now  found  the  door  locked 
and  saw  the  place  was  deserted.  He  broke  the 
door  open  with  a  few  kicks,  and  found  the  house 
empty  save  for  the  dying  creature  on  the  sacks  of 
leaves. 

"  They  would  not  wait !  They  would  not  wait 
— hell  take  them ! "  said  the  old  man,  with  a 
groan,  his  bony  hands  fighting  the  air. 

"  Hush,  hush !  the  holy  oil  is  on  you,"  said 
Don  Silverio.  "  They  knew  I  should  be  here." 

It  was  a  charitable  falsehood,  but  the  brain  of 
the  old  man  was  still  too  awake  to  be  deceived 
by  it. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  87 

"  Why  locked  they  the  door,  then  ?  Hell  take 
them !  They  are  reaping  in  the  lower  fields — hell 
take  them !  "  he  repeated,  his  bony,  toothless  jaws 
gnashing  with  each  word. 

He  was  eighty- four  years  old;  he  had  been 
long  the  terror  of  his  district  and  of  his  descend- 
ants, and  they  paid  him  out  now  that  he  was 
powerless;  they  left  him  alone  in  that  sun-baked 
cabin,  and  they  had  carefully  put  his  crutch  out 
of  reach  so  that  if  any  force  should  return  to  his 
paralysed  body  he  should  be  unable  to  move. 

It  was  the  youngest  of  them  all,  a  little  boy  of 
seven  years  old,  who  had  thought  to  do  that;  the 
crutch  had  hit  him  so  often.' 

The  day  had  been  only  beginning  when  Don 
Silverio  had  reached  the  cabin,  but  he  resolved  to 
await  there  the  return  of  the  family;  its  hours 
were  many  and  long  and  cruel  in  the  midsummer 
heat,  in  this  f  cetid  place  where  more  than  a  score  of 
men,  women,  and  children  of  all  ages  slept  and 
swarmed  through  every  season,  and  where  the 
floors  of  beaten  earth  were  paven  with  filth  three 
millimetres  thick.  The  people  were  absent,  but 
their  ordure,  their  urine,  their  lice,  their  saliva 
were  left  there  after  them,  and  the  stench  of  all 
was  concentrated  on  this  bed  where  the  old  man 
wrestled  with  death. 

Don  Silverio  stayed  on  in  the  sultry  and  pesti- 
lent steam  which  rose  up  from  the  floor.  Gnats 
and  flies  of  all  kinds  buzzed  in  the  heavy  air,  or 


88  The  Waters  of  Edera 

settled  in  black  knots  on  the  walls  and  the  rafters. 
With  a  bunch  of  dried  maize  leaves  he  drove  them 
off  the  old  man's  face  and  hands  and  limbs,  and 
ever  and  again  at  intervals  gave  the  poor  creature 
a  draught  of  water  with  a  few  drops  in  it  from  a 
phial  of  cordial  which  he  had  brought  with  him. 
The  hours  passed,  each  seeming  longer  than  a 
day;  at  last  the  convulsive  twitching  of  the  jaws 
ceased ;  the  jaw  had  fallen,  the  dark  cavern  of  the 
toothless  mouth  yawned  in  a  set  grimace,  the 
vitreous  eyes  were  turned  up  into  the  head;  the  old 
man  was  dead.  But  Don  Silverio  did  not  leave 
him;  two  sows  and  a  hog  were  in  a  stye  which 
was  open  to  the  house ;  he  knew  that  they  would 
come  and  gnaw  the  corpse  if  it  were  left  to  them ; 
they  were  almost  starving,  and  grunted  angrily. 

He  spent  so  many  vigils  similar  to  this  that  the 
self-sacrifice  entailed  in  them  never  struck  either 
him  or  those  he  served. 

When  the  great  heat  had  passed  he  set  the  door 
wide  open;  the  sun  was  setting;  a  flood  of  light 
inundated  the  plain  from  the  near  mountains  on 
the  west,  where  the  Leonessa  towered,  to  those 
shadowy  green  clouds  which  far  away  in  the  east 
were  the  marshes  before  the  sea.  Through  the 
ruddy  glory  of  the  evening  the  family  returned, 
dark  figures  against  the  gold;  brown  women, 
half-nude  men,  footsore  children,  their  steps  drag- 
ging reluctantly  homeward. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  89 

At  the  sight  of  the  priest  on  the  threshold  they 
stopped  and  made  obeisance  humbly  in  reverent 
salutation. 

"Is  he  dead,  most  reverend?"  said  the  eldest 
of  the  brood,  a  man  of  sixty,  touching  the  ground 
with  his  forehead. 

"  Your  father  is  dead,"  said  Don  Silverio. 

The  people  were  still ;  relieved  to  hear  that  all 
was  over,  yet  vaguely  terrified,  rather  by  his  gaze 
than  by  his  words.  A  woman  wept  aloud  out  of 
fear. 

"  We  could  not  let  the  good  grain  spoil,"  said 
the  eldest  man,  with  some  shame  in  his  voice. 

"  Pray  that  your  sons  may  deal  otherwise  with 
you  when  your  turn  shall  come,"  said  Don  Sil- 
verio; and  then  he  went  through  them,  unmoved 
by  their  prayers  and  cries,  and  passed  across  the 
rough  grass-land  out  of  sight. 

The  oldest  man,  he  who  was  now  head  of  the 
house,  remained  prostrate  on  the  threshold  and 
beat  the  dust  with  his  hands  and  heels ;  he  was 
afraid  to  enter,  afraid  of  that  motionless,  lifeless 
bag  of  bones  of  which  the  last  cry  had  been  a 
curse  cast  at  him. 

Don  Silverio  went  on  his  way  over  the  moors 
homeward,  for  he  had  no  means  except  his  own 
limbs  whereby  to  go  to  his  scattered  parishioners. 
When  he  reached  the  village  and  climbed  its 
steep  stones  night  had  long  fallen  and  he  was 


90  The  Waters  of  Edera 

sorely  tired.  He  entered  by  a  door  which  was 
never  locked,  and  found  an  oil  wick  burning  on 
his  table,  which  was  set  out  with  the  brown 
crockery  used  for  his  frugal  supper  of  cheese  and 
lettuces  and  bread.  His  old  servant  was  abed.  His 
little  dog  alone  was  on  the  watch,  to  welcome  him. 
It  was  a  poor  plain  place  with  whitewashed  walls 
and  a  few  necessary  articles  of  use;  but  it  was 
clean  and  sweet,  its  brick  floors  were  sanded,  and 
the  night  air  blew  in  from  its  open  casement  with 
the  freshness  from  the  river  in  it.  Its  quiet  was 
seldom  disturbed  except  by  the  tolling  of  the  bell 
for  church  services;  it  was  welcome  to  him  after 
the  toil  and  heat  and  stench  of  the  past  day. 

"  My  lot  might  have  been  worse,"  he  thought, 
as  he  broke  his  loaf;  he  was  disinclined  to  eat; 
the  filthy  odours  of  the  cabin  pursued  him. 

He  was  used  to  have  had  a  little  weekly  journal 
sent  to  him  by  the  post  which  came  at  rare  inter- 
vals on  an  ass's  back  to  Ruscino,  the  ass  and  his 
rider  with  a  meal  sack  half  filled  by  the  meagre 
correspondence  of  the  district,  making  the  rounds 
of  that  part  of  the  province  with  an  irregularity 
which  seemed  as  natural  to  the  sufferers  by  it  as 
to  the  postman  himself.  He  cannot  be  every- 
where at  once  they  said  of  him  with  indulgence. 

When  Don  Silverio  reached  home  that  evening 
the  little  news-sheet  was  lying  on  his  table  beside 
the  rude  brown  crockery  set  out  for  his  supper, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  9 1 

with  cheese,  lettuces,  and  bread.  He  scarcely 
touched  the  food,  he  was  saddened  and  sickened 
by  the  day  he  had  passed,  although  there  had  been 
nothing  new  in  it,  nothing  of  which  he  had  not 
been  witness  a  hundred  times  in  the  cabins  of  his 
parishioners.  The  little  paper  caught  his  eye,  he 
took  it  and  opened  it.  It  was  but  a  meagre  thing, 
tardy  of  news,  costing  only  two  centimes,  but  it 
was  the  only  publication  which  brought  him  any 
news  of  the  outer  world  from  which  he  was  as 
much  separated  as  though  he  had  been  on  a  de- 
serted isle  in  mid-ocean. 

By  the  pale  light  of  a  single  wick,  he  turned 
over  its  thin  sheet  to  distract  his  thoughts ;  there 
was  war  news  in  east  and  west,  Church  news  in 
his  own  diocese  and  elsewhere ;  news  of  fires  and 
wrecks,  of  suicides,  of  thefts,  news  all  ten  days 
old  and  more;  political  news  also,  scanty  and 
timidly  related.  The  name  of  the  stream  running 
underneath  the  walls  of  Ruscino  caught  his  re- 
gard ;  a  few  lines  were  headed  with  it,  and  these 
lines  said  curtly : 

"  The  project  to  divert  the  course  of  the  Edera 
river  will  be  brought  before  the  Chamber  shortly: 
the  Minister  of  Agriculture  is  considered  to  fa- 
vour the  project" 

He  held  the  sheet  nearer  to  the  light  and 
read  the  paragraph  again,  and  yet  again.  The 
words  were  clear  and  indisputable  in  their 


92  The  Waters  of  Edera 

meaning,  they  could  not  be  misconstrued.  There 
was  but  one  river  Edera  in  the  whole  province,  in 
the  whole  country ;  there  could  be  no  doubt  as  to 
what  river  was  meant ;  yet  it  seemed  to  him  utterly 
impossible  that  any  such  project  could  be  con- 
ceived by  any  creature.  Divert  the  course  of  the 
Edera?  He  felt  stupefied.  He  read  the  words 
over  and  over  again ;  then  he  read  them  aloud  in 
the  stillness  of  the  night,  and  his  voice  sounded 
strong  in  his  own  ears. 

"  It  must  be  a  misprint ;  it  must  be  a  mistake 
for  the  Era  of  Volterra  or  the  Esino,  north  of 
Ancona,"  he  said  to  himself,  and  he  went  to 
his  book  closet  and  brought  out  an  old  folio 
geography  which  he  had  once  bought  for  a 
few  pence  on  a  Roman  bookstall,  spread  it  open 
before  him,  and  read  one  by  one  the  names  of  all 
the  streams  of  the  peninsula,  from  the  Dora  Bal- 
tea  to  the  Giarretta.  There  was  no  other  Edera 
river.  Unless  it  were  indeed  a  misprint  altogether 
the  stream  which  flowed  under  his  church  walls 
was  the  one  which  was  named  in  the  news-sheet. 

"  But  it  is  impossible,  it  is  impossible !  "  he  said 
so  loudly  that  his  little  dog  awoke  and  climbed  on 
his  knee  uneasily  and  in  alarm.  "What  could 
the  people  do  ?  What  could  the  village  do  or  the 
land  or  the  fisher  folk  ?  Are  we  to  have  drought 
added  to  hunger?  Can  they  respect  nothing?  The 
river  belongs  to  the  valley;  to  seize  it,  to  appraise 


The  Waters  of  Edera  93 

it,  to  appropriate  it,  to  make  away  with  it, 
would  be  as  monstrous  as  to  steal  his  mother's 
milk  from  a  yearling  babe !  " 

He  shut  the  folio  and  pushed  it  away  from  him 
across  the  table.  "  If  this  be  true,"  he  said  to 
himself.  "  If,  anyhow,  this  monstrous  thing  be 
true,  it  will  kill  Adone." 

In  the  morning  he  awoke  from  a  short  per- 
turbed sleep  with  that  heavy  sense  of  a  vaguely 
remembered  calamity  which  stirs  in  the  awaken- 
ing brain  like  a  worm  in  the  unclosing  flower. 

The  morning  office  over  he  sought  out  the  little 
news-sheet,  to  make  sure  that  he  had  read  aright ; 
his  servant  had  folded  it  up  and  laid  it  aside  on  a 
shelf,  he  unfolded  it  with  a  hand  which  trembled ; 
the  same  lines  stared  at  him  in  the  warm  light  of 
sunrise  as  in  the  faint  glimmer  of  the  floating 
wick.  The  very  curtness  and  coldness  of  the  an- 
nouncement testified  to  its  exactitude.  He  did 
not  any  longer  doubt  its  truth;  but  there  were 
no  details,  no  explanations;  he  pondered  on  the 
possibilities  of  obtaining  them;  it  was  useless  to 
seek  them  in  the  village  or  the  countryside,  the 
people  were  as  ignorant  as  sheep. 

Adone  alone  had  intelligence,  but  he  shrank 
from  taking  these  tidings  to  the  youth,  as  he 
would  have  shrunk  from  doing  him  a  physical 
hurt.  The  news  might  be  false  or  premature; 
many  projects  were  discussed,  many  schemes 


94  The  Waters  of  Edera 

sketched  out,  many  speculations  set  on  foot  which 
came  to  nothing  in  the  end;  were  this  thing  true 
Adone  would  learn  it  all  too  soon  and  read  it  on 
the  wounded  face  of  nature.-  Not  at  least  until 
he  could  himself  be  certain  of  its  truth  would  he 
speak  of  it  to  the  young  man  whose  fathers  had 
been  lords  of  the  river. 

His  dutiesover  for  the  forenoon,  he  went  up  the 
three  hundred  stairs  of  his  bell-tower,  to  the 
wooden  platform,  between  the  machicolations. 
It  was  a  dizzy  height,  and  both  stairs  and 
roof  were  in  ruins,  but  he  went  cautiously, 
and  was  familiar  with  the  danger.  The  owls 
which  bred  there  were  so  used  to  him  that  they  did 
not  stir  in  their  siesta  as  he  passed  them.  He 
stood  aloft  in  the  glare  of  noonday  and  looked 
down  on  the  winding  stream  as  it  passed  under 
the  ruined  walls  of  Ruscino,  and  growing,  as  it 
flowed,  clearer  and  clearer,  and  wilder  and  wilder, 
as  it  rushed  over  stones  and  boulders,  foaming  and 
shouting,  rushed  through  the  heather  on  its  way 
towards  the  Marches.  Under  Ruscino  it  had  its 
brown  mountain  colour  still,  but  as  it  ran  it  grew 
green  as  emeralds,  blue  as  sapphires,  silver  and 
white  and  grey  like  a  dove's  wings;  it  was  un- 
sullied and  translucent ;  the  white  clouds  were  re- 
flected on  it.  It  went  through  a  country  lonely, 
almost  deserted,  only  at  great  distances  from  one 
another  was  there  a  group  of  homesteads,  a  cluster 


The  Waters  of  Edera  95 

of  stacks,  a  conical  cabin  in  some  places  where  the 
woods  gave  place  to  pasture;  here  and  there  were 
the  ruins  of  a  temple,  of  a  fortress,  of  some  great 
marble  or  granite  tomb;  but  there  was  no  living 
creature  in  sight  except  a  troop  of  buffaloes 
splashing  in  a  pool. 

Don  Silverio  looked  down  on  its  course  until 
his  dazzled  eyes  lost  it  from  sight  in  the  glory  of 
light  through  which  it  sped,  and  his  heart  sank, 
and  he  would  fain  have  been  a  woman  to  have 
wept  aloud.  For  he  saw  that  its  beauty  and  its 
solitude  were  such  as  would  likely  enough  tempt 
the  spoilers.  He  saw  that  it  lay  fair  and  defence- 
less as  a  maiden  on  her  bed. 

He  dwelt  out  of  the  world  now,  but  he  had 
once  dwelt  in  it;  and  the  world  does  not  greatly 
change,  it  only  grows  more  rapacious.  He  knew 
that  in  this  age  there  is  only  one  law  to  gain, 
only  one  duty,  to  prosper;  that  nature  is  of  no 
account,  nor  beauty  either,  nor  repose,  nor  ancient 
rights,  nor  any  of  the  simple  claims  of  normal  jus- 
tice. He  knew  that  if  in  the  course  of  the  river 
there  would  be  gold  for  capitalists,  for  engineers, 
for  contractors,  for  promoters,  for  speculators, 
for  attorneys,  for  deputies,  for  ministers,  that 
then  the  waters  of  the  Edera  were  in  all  prob- 
ability doomed. 

He  descended  the  rotten  stairs  slowly,  with  a 
weight  as  of  lead  at  his  heart.  He  did  not  any 


96  The  Waters  of  Edera 

longer  doubt  the  truth  of  what  he  had  read.    Who 
or  what  shall  withstand  the  curse  of  its  time  ? 

"  They  have  forgotten  us  so  long,"  he  thought, 
with  bitterness  in  his  soul.  "We  have  been  left 
to  bury  our  dead  as  we  would,  and  to  see  the 
children  starve  as  they  might;  they  remember  us 
now  because  we  possess  something  which  they 
can  snatch  from  us." 

He  did  not  doubt  any  more.  He  could  only 
wait:  wait  and  see  in  what  form  and  in  what 
time  the  evil  would  come  to  them.  Meantime, 
he  said  to  himself,  he  would  not  speak  of  it  to 
Adone,  and  he  burned  the  news-sheet.  Adminis- 
trations alter  frequently  and  unexpectedly,  and 
the  money-changers,  who  are  fostered  by  them, 
sometimes  fall  with  them,  and  their  projects  re- 
main in  the  embryo  of  a  mere  prospectus.  There 
was  that  chance. 

He  knew  that  in  the  age  he  lived  in,  all  things 
were  only  estimated  by  their  value  to  commerce 
or  to  speculation;  that  there  was  neither  space 
nor  patience  amongst  men  for  what  was,  in  their 
reckoning,  useless;  that  the  conqueror  was  now 
but  a  trader  in  disguise;  that  civilisation  was  but 
the  shibboleth  of  traffic ;  that  because  trade  follows 
the  flag,  therefore  to  carry  the  flag  afar,  thou- 
sands of  young  soldiers  of  every  nationality  are 
slaughtered  annually  in  poisonous  climes  and  ob- 
scure warfare,  because  such  is  the  suprema  lex 


The  Waters  of  Edera  97 

and  will  of  the  trader.  If  the  waters  of  Edera 
would  serve  to  grind  any  grist  for  the  mills  of 
modern  trade  they  would  be  taken  into  bondage 
with  many  other  gifts  of  nature  as  fair  and  as  free 
as  they  were.  All  creation  groaned  and  travailed 
in  pain  that  the  great  cancer  of  the  cities  should 
spread. 

"  It  is  not  only  ours,"  he  remembered  with  a 
pang;  on  its  way  to  and  from  the  Vald'edera  the 
river  passed  partially  through  two  other  com- 
munes, and  water  belongs  to  the  district  in  which 
it  runs.  True,  the  country  of  each  of  these  was 
like  that  of  this  valley,  depopulated  and  wild ;  but, 
however  great  a  solitude  any  land  may  be,  it  is  still 
locally  and  administratively  annexed  to  and  owned 
by  the  town  which  it  is  municipality.  Ruscino 
and  its  valley  were  dependent  on  San  Beda ;  these 
two  other  communes  were  respectively  under  a 
little  town  of  the  Abruzzi  and  under  a  seaport  of 
the  Adriatic. 

The  interest  of  the  valley  of  the  Edera  in  its 
eponymous  stream  was  the  largest  share;  but  it 
was  not  more  than  a  share  in  this  gift  of  nature. 
If  it  came  to  any  question  of  conflicting  inter- 
ests, Ruscino  and  the  valley  might  very  likely  be 
powerless,  and  could  only,  in  any  event,  be  repre- 
sented by  and  through  San  Beda;  a  strongly  ec- 
clesiastical and  papal  little  place,  and  therefore, 
without  influence  with  the  ruling  powers,  and 


98  The  Waters  of  Edera 

consequently  viewed  with  an  evil  eye  by  the  Pre- 
fecture. 

He  pondered  anxiously  on  the  matter  for  some 
days,  then,  arduous  as  the  journey  was,  he  re- 
solved to  go  to  San  Beda  and  inquire. 

The  small  mountain  city  was  many  miles  away 
upon  a  promontory  of  marble  rocks,  and  its  many 
spires  and  towers  were  visible  only  in  afternoon 
light  from  the  valley  of  the  Edera.  It  was  as  old 
as  Ruscino,  a  dull,  dark,  very  ancient  place  with 
monasteries  and  convents  like  huge  fortresses  and 
old  palaces  still  fortified  and  grim  as  death 
amongst  them.  A  Cistercian  monastery,  which 
had  been  chiefly  builded  by  the  second  Giulio, 
crowned  a  prominent  cliff,  which  dominated  the 
town,  and  commanded  a  view  of  the  whole  of  the 
valley  of  the  Edera,  and,  on  the  western  horizon, 
of  the  Leonessa  and  her  tributary  mountains  and 
hills. 

He  had  not  been  there  for  five  years ;  he  went 
on  foot,  for  there  was  no  other  means  of  transit, 
and  if  there  had  been  he  would  not  have  wasted 
money  on  it;  the  way  was  long  and  irksome;  for 
the  latter  half,  entirely  up  a  steep  mountain  road. 
He  started  in  the  early  morning  as  soon  as  mass 
had  been  celebrated,  and  it  was  four  in  the  after- 
noon before  he  had  passed  the  gates  of  the  town. 
He  rested  in  the  Certosa,  of  which  the  superior 
was  known  to  him,  and  made  his  first  inquiries 
amongst  the  monks ;  they  had  heard  nothing.  So 


The  Waters  of  Edera  99 

far  as  he  could  learn  when  he  went  into  the  streets 
no  one  in  the  place  had  heard  anything  of  the  pro- 
ject to  alter  the  course  of  the  river.  He  made 
the  return  journey  by  night  so  as  to  reach  his 
church  by  daybreak,  and  was  there  in  his  place 
by  the  high  altar  when  the  bell  tolled  at  six 
o'clock,  and  the  three  or  four  old  people,  who 
never  missed  an  office,  were  kneeling  on  the 
stones. 

He  had  walked  over  forty  miles  and  had  eaten 
nothing  except  some  bread  and  a  piece  of  dried 
fish.  But  he  always  welcomed  physical  fatigue; 
it  served  to  send  to  sleep  the  restless  intellect,  the 
gnawing  regrets,  the  bitter  sense  of  wasted  pow- 
ers and  of  useless  knowledge  which  were  his  daily 
company. 

He  had  begged  his  friends,  the  friars,  to  obtain 
an  interview  with  the  Syndic  of  San  Beda,  and 
interrogate  him  on  the  subject.  Until  he  should 
learn  something  positive  he  could  not  bring  him- 
self to  speak  of  the  matter  to  Adone :  but  the  fact 
of  his  unusual  absence  had  too  much  astonished 
his  little  community  for  the  journey  not  to  have 
been  the  talk  of  Ruscino.  Surprised  and  disturbed 
like  others,  Adone  was  waiting  for  him  in  the 
sacristy  after  the  first  mass. 

"  You  have  been  away  a  whole  day  and  night 
and  never  told  me,  reverendissimo ! "  he  cried  in 
reproach  and  amazement. 

"  I  have  yet  to  learn  that  you  are  my  keeper," 


I  oo  The  Waters  of  Edera 

said  Don  Silverio  with  a  cold  and  caustic  intona- 
tion. 

Adone  coloured  to  the  roots  of  his  curling  hair. 

"That  is  unkind,  sir!"  he  said  humbly;  "I 
only  meant  that — that " 

"  I  know,  I  know !  "  said  the  priest  impatiently, 
but  with  contrition.  "  You  meant  only  friend- 
ship and  good-will ;  but  there  are  times  when  the 
best  intentions  irk  one.  I  went  to  see  the  Prior  of 
the  Certosa,  an  old  friend ;  I  had  business  in  San 
Beda." 

Adone  was  silent,  afraid  that  he  had  shown  an 
unseemly  curiosity;  he  saw  that  Don  Silverio 
was  irritated  and  not  at  ease,  and  he  hesitated 
what  words  to  choose. 

His  friend  relented,  and  blamed  himself  for 
being  hurried  by  disquietude  into  harshness. 

"  Come  and  have  a  cup  of  coffee  with  me, 
my  son,"  he  said  in  his  old,  kind  tones.  "  I  am 
going  home  to  break  my  fast." 

But  Adone  was  hurt  and  humiliated,  and  made 
excuse  of  field  work,  which  pressed  by  reason  of 
the  weather,  and  so  he  did  not  name  to  his  friend 
and  councillor  the  visit  of  the  three  men  to  the 
river. 

Don  Silverio  went  home  and  boiled  his  coffee; 
he  always  did  this  himself ;  it  was  the  only  luxury 
he  ever  allowed  himself,  and  he  did  not  indulge 
even  in  this  very  often.  But  for  once  the  draught 


The  Waters  of  Edera  101 

had  neither  fragrance  nor  balm  for  him.  He  was 
overtired,  weary  in  mind  as  in  body,  and  greatly 
dejected ;  even  though  nothing  was  known  at  San 
Beda  he  felt  convinced  that  what  he  had  read  was 
the  truth. 

He  knew  but  little  of  affairs  of  speculation,  but 
he  knew  that  it  was  only  in  reason  to  suppose  that 
such  projects  would  be  kept  concealed,  as  long  as 
might  be  expedient,  from  those  who  would  be 
known  to  be  hostile  to  them,  in  order  to  minimize 
the  force  of  opposition. 


VI 

ON  the  morning  of  the  fourth  day  which  fol- 
lowed on  the  priest's  visit  to  San  Beda,  about  ten 
in  the  forenoon,  Adone,  with  his  two  oxen,  Or- 
lando and  Rinaldo  were  near  the  river  on  that 
part  of  his  land  which  was  still  natural  moorland, 
and  on  which  heather,  and  ling,  and  broom,  and 
wild  roses,  and  bracken  grew  together.  He  had 
come  to  cut  a  waggon  load  of  furze,  and  had 
been  at  work  there  since  eight  o'clock,  when 
he  had  come  out  of  the  great  porch  of  the 
church  after  attending  mass,  for  it  was  the 
twentieth  of  June,  the  name-day  of  Don  Silverio. 

Scarcely  had  that  day  dawned  when  Adone  had 
risen  and  had  gone  across  the  river  to  the  presby- 
tery, bearing  with  him  a  dozen  eggs,  two  flasks 
of  his  best  wine,  and  a  bunch  of  late-flowering 
roses.  They  were  his  annual  offerings  on  this 
day;  he  felt  some  trepidation  as  he  climbed  the 
steep,  stony,  uneven  street  lest  they  should  be  re- 
jected, for  he  was  conscious  that  three  evenings 
before  he  had  offended  Don  Silverio,  and  had 
left  the  presbytery  too  abruptly.  But  his  fears 
were  allayed  as  soon  as  he  entered  the  house; 
103 


The  Waters  of  Edera  103 

the  vicar  was  already  up  and  dressed,  and  was 
about  to  go  to  the  church.  At  the  young  man's 
first  contrite  words  Don  Silverio  stopped  him 
with  a  kind  smile. 

"  I  was  impatient  and  to  blame,"  he  said  as  he 
took  the  roses.  "  You  heap  coals  of  fire  on  my 
head,  my  son,  with  your  welcome  gifts." 

Then  together  they  had  gone  to  the  quaint  old 
church  of  which  the  one  great  bell  was  tolling. 

Mass  over,  Adone  had  gone  home,  broken  his 
fast,  taken  off  his  velvet  jacket,  his  long  scarlet 
waistcoat,  and  his  silver-studded  belt,  and  put  the 
oxen  to  the  pole  of  the  waggon. 

"  Shall  I  come  ?  "  cried  Nerina. 

"  No,"  he  answered.  "  Go  and  finish  cutting 
the  oats  in  the  triangular  field." 

Always  obedient,  she  went,  her  sickle  swinging 
to  her  girdle.  She  was  sorry,  but  she  never  mur- 
mured. 

Adone  had  been  at  work  amongst  the  furze  two 
hours  when  old  Pierino,  who  always  accompanied 
the  oxen,  got  up,  growled,  and  then  barked. 

"  What  is  it,  old  friend  ?  "  asked  Adone,  and 
left  off  his  work  and  listened.  He  heard  voices 
by  the  waterside  and  steps  on  the  loose  shingle 
of  its  shrunken  summer  bed.  He  went  out  of  the 
wild  growth  round  him  and  looked.  There  were 
four  men  standing  and  talking  by  the  water. 
They  were  doubtless  the  same  persons  as  Nejina 


1 04  The  Waters  of  Edera 

had  seen,  for  they  were  evidently  men  from  a  city 
and  strangers.  Disquietude  and  offence  took 
alarm  in  him  at  once. 

He  conquered  that  shyness  which  was  natural 
to  him,  and  which  was  due  to  the  sensitiveness 
of  his  temperament  and  the  solitude  in  which  he 
had  been  reared. 

"  Excuse  me,  sirs,"  he  said,  as  he  advanced  to 
them  with  his  head  uncovered;  "  what  is  it  you 
want  with  my  river?  " 

"  Your  river !  "  repeated  the  head  of  the  group, 
and  he  smiled.  "  How  is  it  more  yours  than  your 
fellows?" 

Adone  advanced  nearer. 

"  The  whole  course  of  the  water  belonged  to 
my  ancestors,"  he  answered,  "  and  this  portion  at 
least  is  mine  now;  you  stand  on  my  ground.  I 
ask  you  wh^t  i$  your  errand?  " 

He  spoke  with  courtesy,  but  in  a  tone  of 
authority  which  seemed  to  the  intruders  imper- 
ious and  irritating.  But  they  controlled  their  an- 
noyance ;  they  did  not  wish  to  offend  this  haughty 
young  peasant. 

"  To  be  owner  of  the  water  it  is  necessary  to 
own  both  banks  of  it,"  the  stranger  replied  po- 
litely, but  with  some  impatience.  "  The  opposite 
bank  is  communal  property.  Do  not  fear,  how- 
ever, whatever  your  rights  may  be  they  will  be 
carefully  examined  and  considered." 

"  By  whom  ?    They  concern  only  myself." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  105 

"  None  of  our  rights  concern  only  ourselves. 
What  are  those  which  you  claim  in  especial  on  the 
Edera  water?  " 

Adone  was  silent  for  a  few  moments;  he  was 
astonished  and  embarrassed;  he  had  never 
reflected  on  the  legal  side  of  his  claim  to  the  river ; 
he  had  grown  up  in  love  and  union  with  it;  such 
affections,  born  with  us  at  birth,  are  not  analysed 
until  they  are  assailed. 

"  You  are  strangers,"  he  replied.  "  By  what 
right  do  you  question  me?  I  was  born  here. 
.What  is  your  errand  ?  " 

"  You  must  be  Adone  Alba  ?  "  said  this  person, 
as  if  spokesman  for  the  others. 

"  I  am." 

"And  you  own  the  land  known  as  the  Terra 
Vergine?  " 

"  I  do." 

"You  will  hear  from  us  in  due  course,  then. 
Meantime "  • 

"  Meantime  you  trespass  on  my  ground.  Leave 
it,  sirs." 

The  four  strangers  drew  away  a  few  paces  and 
conferred  together  in  a  low  tone,  consulting  a 
sheaf  of  papers.  Their  council  over,  he  who  ap- 
peared the  most  conspicuous  in  authority  turned 
again  to  the  young  man,  who  was  watching  them 
with  a  vague  apprehension  which  he  could  not  ex- 
plain to  himself, 


1 06  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  There  is  no  question  of  trespass ;  the  riverside 
is  free  to  all,"  said  the  stranger,  with  some  con- 
tempt. "  Courtesy  would  become  you  better,  Ser 
Adone." 

Adone  coloured.  He  knew  that  courtesy  was 
at  all  times  wise  and  useful  and  an  obligation 
amongst  men;  but  his  anger  was  stronger  than 
his  prudence  and  his  vague  alarm  was  yet 
stronger  still. 

"  Say  your  errand  with  the  water,"  he  replied 
imperiously.  "  Then  I  can  judge  of  it.  No  one, 
sirs,  comes  hither  against  my  will." 

"  You  will  hear  from  us  in  due  time,"  answered 
the  intruder.  "  And  believe  me,  young  man,  you 
may  lose  much,  you  cannot  gain  anything  by  rude- 
ness and  opposition." 

"  Opposition  to  what?  " 

The  stranger  turned  his  back  upon  him,  rolled 
up  his  papers,  spoke  again  with  his  companions, 
and  lifted  from  a  large  stone  on  which  he  had 
placed  it  a  case  of  surveyor's  instruments.  Adone 
went  Close  up  to  him.  "Opposition  to  what? 
What  is  it  you  are  doing  here  ?  " 

"  We  are  not  your  servants,"  said  the  gentle- 
man with  impatience.  "  Do  not  attempt  any 
brawling  I  advise  you;  it  will  tell  against  you 
and  cannot  serve  you  in  any  way." 

"  The  soil  and  the  water  are  mine,  and  you 
meddle  with  them,"  said  Adone,  "  If  you  were 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 07 

honest  men  you  would  not  be  ashamed  of  what 
you  do,  and  would  declare  your  errand.  Brawling 
is  not  in  my  habit ;  but  either  speak  clearly,  or  get 
you  gone,  or  I  will  drive  my  oxen  over  you.  The 
land  and  the  waters  are  mine." 

The  chief  of  the  group  gave  a  disdainful,  in- 
credulous gesture,  but  the  others  pulled  him  by 
the  sleeve  and  argued  with  him  in  low  tones  and 
a  strange  tongue,  which  Adone  thought  was 
German.  The  leader  of  the  group  was  a  small 
man  with  a  keen,  mobile  face  and  piercing  eyes; 
he  did  not  yield  easily  to  the  persuasions  of  his 
companions;  he  was  disposed  to  be  combative; 
he  was  offended  by  what  seemed  to  him  the  in- 
sults of  a  mere  peasant. 

Adone  went  back  to  his  oxen,  who  were  stand- 
ing dozing  with  drooped  heads;  he  gathered  up 
the  reins  of  rope  and  mounted  the  waggon,  rais- 
ing the  drooped  heads  of  the  beasts.  He  held  his 
goad  in  his  hand;  the  golden  gorze  was  piled  be- 
hind him;  he  was  in  full  sunlight,  his  hair  was 
lifted  by  the  breeze  from  his  forehead;  his  face 
was  flushed  and  set  and  stern.  They  saw  that  he 
would  keep  his  word  and  drive  down  on  to  them, 
and  make  his  oxen  knock  them  down  and  the 
wheels  grind  their  bodies  into  pulp.  They  had 
no  arms  of  any  kind,  they  felt  they  had  no  choice 
but  to  submit :  and  did  so,  with  sore  reluctance. 

"  He  looks  like  a  young  god,"  said  one  of  them 


io8  The  Waters  of  Edera 

with  an  angry  laugh.  "'  Mortals  cannot  fight 
against  the  gods." 

With  discomfiture  they  retreated  before  him 
and  went  along  the  grassy  path  northward,  as 
Nerina  had  seen  them  do  on  the  day  of  their  first 
arrival. 

So  far  Adone  had  conquered. 

But  no  joy  or  pride  of  a  victor  was  with  him. 
He  stood  and  watched  them  pass  away  with  a 
heavy  sense  of  impending  ill  upon  him ;  the  river 
was  flowing  joyously,  unconscious  of  its  doom, 
but  on  him,  though  he  knew  nothing  and  con- 
ceived nothing  of  the  form  which  the  approaching 
evil  would  take,  a  great  weight  of  anxiety  de- 
scended. 

He  got  down  from  the  waggon  when  he  had 
seen  them  disappear,  and  continued  his  uninter- 
rupted work  amongst  the  furze ;  and  he  remained 
on  the  same  spot  long  after  the  waggon  was  filled, 
lest  in  his  absence  the  intruders  should  return. 
Only  when  the  sun  set  did  he  turn  the  heads  of 
the  oxen  homeward. 

He  said  nothing  to  the  women,  but  when  he 
had  stalled  and  fed  his  cattle  he  changed  his 
leathern  breeches  and  put  a  clean  shirt  on  his 
back,  and  went  down  the  twilit  fields  and  across 
the  water  to  Ruscino ;  he  told  his  mother  that  he 
would  sup  with  Don  Silverio. 

When  Adone  entered  the  book-room  his  friend 


The  Waters  of  Edera  109 

was  seated  at  a  deal  table  laden  with  volumes  and 
manuscripts,  but  he  was  neither  writing  or  read- 
ing, nor  had  he  lighted  his  lamp.  The  moonlight 
shone  through  the  vine  climbing  up  and  covering 
the  narrow  window.  He  looked  up  and  saw  by 
Adone's  countenance  that  something  was  wrong. 

"  What  are  they  coming  for,  sir,  to  the  river?  " 
said  the  young  man  as  he  uncovered  his  head  on 
the  threshold  of  the  chamber.  Don  Silverio  hesi- 
tated to  reply;  in  the  moonlight  his  features 
looked  like  a  mask  of  a  dead  man,  it  was  so  white 
and  its  lines  so  deep. 

"  Why  do  they  come  to  the  river,  these 
strangers?  "  repeated  Adone.  "  They  would  not 
say.  They  were  on  my  land.  I  threatened  to 
drive  my  cattle  over  them.  Then  they  went.  But 
can  you  guess,  sir,  why  they  come?  " 

Don  Silverio  still  hesitated.  Adone  repeated 
his  question  with  more  insistence;  he  came  up  to 
the  table  and  leaned  his  hands  upon  it,  and  looked 
down  on  the  face  of  his  friend. 

"  Why  do  they  come  ?  "  he  repeated  a  fourth 
time.  "  They  must  have  some  reason.  Surely 
you  know  ?  " 

"  Listen,  Adone,  and  control  yourself,"  said 
Don  -Silverio. 

"  I  saw  something  in  a  journal  a  few  days 
ago  which  made  me  go  to  San  Beda.  But 
there  they  knew  nothing  at  all  of  what  the  news- 


1 1  o  The  Waters  of  Edera 

paper  had  stated.  What  I  said  startled  and 
alarmed  them.  I  begged  the  Prior  to  acquaint 
me  if  he  heard  of  any  scheme  affecting  us.  To- 
day only,  he  has  sent  a  young  monk  over  with  a 
letter  to  me,  for  it  was  only  yesterday  that  he 
heard  that  there  is  a  project  in  Rome  to  turn  the 
river  out  of  its  course,  and  use  it  for  hydraulic 
power;  to  what  purpose  he  does  not  know.  The 
townsfolk  of  San  Beda  are  in  entire  sympathy 
with  this  district  and  against  the  scheme,  which 
will  only  benefit  a  foreign  syndicate.  That  is  all  I 
know,  for  it  is  all  he  knows ;  he  took  his  informa- 
tion direct  from  the  syndic,  Count  Corradini. 
My  boy,  my  dear  boy,  control  yourself!  " 

Adone  had  dropped  down  on  a  chair,  and  lean- 
ing his  elbow  on  the  table  hid  his  face  upon  his 
hands.  A  tremor  shook  his  frame  from  head  to 
foot. 

"  I  knew  it  was  some  devilry,"  he  muttered. 
"  Oh,  Lord !  oh,  Lord !  would  that  I  had  made 
the  oxen  trample  them  into  a  thousand  pieces! 
They  ought  never  to  have  left  my  field  alive !  " 

"  Hush,  hush !  "  said  the  priest  sternly.  "  I 
cannot  have  such  language  in  my  house.  Com- 
pose yourself." 

Adone  raised  his  head ;  his  eyes  were  alight  as 
with  fire ;  his  face  was  darkly  red. 

"  What,  sir !  You  tell  me  the  river  is  to  be 
taken  away  from  us,  and  you  ask  me  to  be  calm ! 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 1 1 

It  is  not  in  human  nature  to  bear  such  a  wrong  in 
peace.  Take  away  the  Edera!  Take  away  the 
water !  They  had  better  cut  our  throats.  What ! 
a  poor  wretch  who  steals  a  few  grapes  off  a  vine, 
a  few  eggs  from  a  hen  roost,  is  called  a  thief  and 
hounded  to  the  galleys,  and  such  robbery  as  this 
is  to  be  borne  in  silence  because  the  thieves  wear 
broadcloth !  It  cannot  be.  It  cannot  be ;  I  swear 
it  shall  never  be  whilst  I  have  life.  The  river  is 
mine.  We  reigned  here  a  thousand  years  and 
more;  you  have  told  me  so.  It  is  written  there 
on  the  parchments.  I  will  hold  my  own." 

Don  Silverio  was  silent;  he  was  silent  from 
remorse.  He  had  told  Adone  what,  without  him 
Adone  would  have  lived  and  died  never  know- 
ing or  dreaming.  He  had  thought  only  to  stimu- 
late the  youth  to  gentle  conduct,  honourable 
pride,  perhaps  to  some  higher  use  of  his  abilities : 
no  more  than  this. 

He  had  never  seen  the  young  man  thus  violent 
and  vehement ;  he  had  always  found  him  tranquil 
to  excess,  difficult  to  rouse,  slow  to  anger,  indeed 
almost  incapable  of  it ;  partaking  of  the  nature  of 
the  calm  and  docile  cattle  with  whom  so  much  of 
his  time  was  passed.  But  under  the  spur  of  an 
intolerable  menace  the  warrior's  blood  which 
slumbered  in  Adone  leapt  to  action;  all  at  once 
the  fierce  temper  of  the  lords  of  Ruscino  displayed 
its  fire  and  its  metal;  it  was  not  the  peasant  of 


1 1 2  The  Waters  of  Edera 

the  Terra  Vergine  who  was  before  him  now,  but 
the  heir  of  the  siegneury  of  the  Rocca. 

"  It  is  not  only  what  I  told  him  of  his  race,"  he 
thought.  "  If  he  had  known  nothing,  none  the 
less  would  the  blood  in  his  veins  have  stirred  and 
the  past  have  moved  him." 

Aloud  he  said : 

"  My  son,  I  feel  for  you  from  the  depths  of  my 
soul.  I  feel  with  you  also.  For  if  these  foreign- 
ers take  the  river-water  from  us  what  will  become 
of  my  poor,  desolate  people,  only  too  wretched  al- 
ready as  they  are?  You  would  not  be  alone  in 
your  desperation,  Adone.  But  do  not  let  us  take 
alarm  too  quickly.  This  measure  is  in  gestation ; 
but  it  may  never  come  to  birth.  Many  such  pro- 
jects are  discussed  which  from  one  cause  or  an- 
other are  not  carried  out;  this  one  must  pass 
through  many  preliminary  phases  before  it  be- 
comes fact.  There  must  be  surely  many  vested 
rights  which  cannot  with  impunity  be  invaded. 
Take  courage.  Have  patience." 

He  paused,  for  he  saw  that  for  the  first  time 
since  they  had  known  each  other,  Adone  was  not 
listening  to  him. 

Adone  was  staring  up  at  the  moon  which  hung, 
golden  and  full,  in  the  dark  blue  sky,  seeming 
framed  in  the  leaves  and  coils  of  the  vine. 

"  The  river  is  mine,"  he  muttered.     "  The  river 


The  Waters  of  Edera  113 

and  I  are  as  brothers.  They  shall  kill  me  before 
they  touch  the  water." 

"  He  will  go  mad  or  commit  some  great 
crime,"  thought  his  friend,  looking  at  him.  "  We 
must  move  every  lever  and  strain  every  nerve,  to 
frustrate  this  scheme,  to  prevent  this  spoliation. 
But  if  the  thieves  see  money  in  it  who  shall  stay 
their  hands?" 

He  rose  and  laid  his  hands  on  Adone's  should- 
ers. 

"  To-night  you  are  in  no  fitting  state  for  calm 
consideration  of  this  possible  calamity.  Go  home, 
my  son.  Go  to  your  room.  Say  nothing  to  your 
mother.  Pray  and  sleep.  In  the  forenoon  come 
to  me  and  we  will  speak  of  the  measures  which  it 
may  be  possible  to  take  to  have  this  matter  exam- 
ined and  opposed.  We  are  very  poor;  but  still 
we  are  not  altogether  helpless.  Only,  there  must 
be  no  violence.  You  wrong  yourself  and  you 
weaken  a  good  cause  by  such  wild  threats.  Good 
night,  my  son.  Go  home." 

The  long  habit  of  obedience  to  his  superior,  and 
the  instinctive  docility  of  his  temper  compelled 
Adone  to  submit;  he  drew  a  long,  deep  breath 
and  the  blood  faded  from  his  face. 

Without  a  word  he  turned  from  the  table  and 
went  out  of  the  presbytery  into  the  night  and  the 
white  glory  of  the  moonshine. 


VII 

DON  SILVERIO  drew  to  him  his  unfinished  letter 
to  the  Prior;  the  young  monk  who  would  take  it 
back  in  the  morning  to  San  Beda  was  already 
asleep  in  a  little  chamber  above.  But  he  could  not 
write,  he  was  too  perturbed  and  too  anxious.  Al- 
though he  had  spoken  so  calmly  he  was  full  of 
carking  care;  both  for  the  threatened  evil  itself 
and  its  effect  upon  his  parishioners  and  especially 
upon  Adone.  He  knew  that  in  this  age  it  is  more 
difficult  to  check  the  devouring  monster  of  com- 
mercial covetousness  than  it  ever  was  to  stay  the 
Bull  of  Crete;  and  that  for  a  poor  and  friendless 
community  to  oppose  a  strong  and  wealthy  band 
of  speculators  is  indeed  for  the  wooden  lance  to 
shiver  to  atoms  on  the  brazen  shield. 

He  left  his  writing  table  and  extinguished  his 
lamp.  Bidding  the  little  dog  lie  still  upon  his 
chair,  he  went  through  the  house  to  a  door 
which  opened  from  it  into  the  bell  tower  of  his 
church  and  which  allowed  him  to  go  from  the 
house  to  the  church  without  passing  out  into  the 
street.  He  climbed  the  belfry  stairs  once  more, 
lighting  himself  at  intervals  by  striking  a  wooden 
114 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 1 5 

match;  for  through  the  narrow  loopholes  in  the 
walls  the  moonbeams  did  not  penetrate.  He  knew 
the  way  so  well  that  he  could  have  gone  up  and 
down  those  rotting  stairs  even  in  total  darkness, 
and  he  safely  reached  the  platform  of  the  bell 
tower,  though  one  halting  step  might  have  sent 
him  in  that  darkness  head  foremost  to  his  death. 

He  stood  there  and  gazed  downwards  on  the 
moonlit  landscape  far  below,  over  the  roofs  and 
the  walls  of  the  village  towards  the  open  fields  and 
the  river,  with  beyond  that  the  wooded  country 
and  the  cultured  land  known  as  the  Terra  Ver- 
gine,  and  beyond  those  again  the  moors,  the 
marshes,  and  the  mountains.  The  moonlight 
shone  with  intense  clearness  on  the  waters  of  the 
Edera  and  on  the  stone  causeway  of  the  old  one- 
arched  bridge.  On  the  bridge  there  was  a  figure 
moving  slowly;  he  knew  it  to  be  that  of  Adone. 
Adone  was  going  home. 

He  was  relieved  from  the  pressure  of  one  im- 
mediate anxiety,  but  his  apprehensions  for  the 
future  were  great,  both  for  the  young  man  and 
for  the  people  of  Ruscino  and  its  surrounding 
country.  To  take  away  their  river  was  to  deprive 
them  of  the  little  which  they  had  to  make  life 
tolerable  and  to  supply  the  means  of  existence. 
Like  all  riverain  people,  they  depended  chiefly  on 
the  water,  on  its  fish,  its  osiers,  its  sedges,  its  sal- 
lows, its  flags,  its  sand;  and  its  various  branches 


1 1 6  The  Waters  of  Edera 

and  its  winter  overflow  nourished  the  fields  which 
they  owned  around  it,  and  the  only  corn-mill  of 
the  district  worked  by  a  huge  wheel  in  its  water. 
If  the  river  were  turned  out  of  its  course  above 
Ruscino  the  whole  of  this  part  of  the  vale  would 
be  made  desolate. 

Life  was  already  hard  for  the  human  creatures 
in  these  fair  scenes  on  which  he  looked;  without 
the  river  their  lot  would  be  famine,  would  be 
death. 

"  Forbid  it,  oh,  Lord !  forbid  this  monstrous 
wrong,"  he  said,  as  he  stood  with  bared  head  un- 
der the  starry  skies. 

When  the  people  of  a  remote  place  are  smitten 
by  a  public  power  the  blow  falls  on  them  as  unin- 
telligible in  its  meaning,  as  invisible  in  its  agency, 
as  a  thunderbolt  is  to  the  cattle  whom  it  slays  in 
their  stalls.  Even  Don  Silverio,  with  his  classic 
culture  and  his  archaeological  learning,  had  little 
comprehension  of  the  means  and  methods  by 
which  these  enterprises  were  combined  and  car- 
ried out;  the  world  of  commerce  and  speculation 
is  as  aloof  from  the  scholar  and  the  recluse  as  the 
rings  of  Saturn  or  the  sun  of  Aldebaran.  Its 
mechanism,  its  intentions,  its  combinations,  its 
manners  of  action,  its  ways  of  expenditure,  its 
intrigues  with  banks  and  governments:  all  these 
to  men  who  dwell  in  rural  solitudes,  aloof  from 
the  babble  of  crowds,  are  utterly  unknown;  the 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 17 

very  language  of  the  Bourses  has  no  more  mean- 
ing to  them  than  the  jar  of  wheels  or  roar  of 
steam. 

He  stood  and  looked  with  a  sinking  heart  on 
the  quiet,  moonlit  country,  and  the  winding 
course  of  the  water  where  it  flowed,  now  silvery 
in  the  light,  now  black  in  the  gloom,  passing 
rapidly  through  the  heather  and  the  willows  un- 
der the  gigantic  masses  of  the  Etruscan  walls.  It 
seemed  to  him  to  the  full  as  terrible  as  to  Adone ; 
but  it  did  not  seem  to  him  so  utterly  impossible, 
because  he  knew  more  of  the  ways  of  men  and  of 
their  unhesitating  and  immeasurable  cruelty 
whenever  their  greed  was  excited.  If  the  fury  of 
speculation  saw  desirable  prey  in  the  rape  of  the 
Edera  then  the  Edera  was  doomed  like  the  daugh- 
ter of  ^dipus  or  the  daughter  of  Jephtha. 

Adone  had  gone  across  the  bridge,  but  he  had 
remained  by  the  waterside. 

"  Pray  and  sleep ! "  Don  Silverio  had  said  in 
his  last  words.  But  to  Adone  it  seemed  that 
neither  prayer  nor  sleep  would  ever  come  to  him 
again  so  long  as  this  impending  evil  hung  over 
him  and  the  water  of  the  Edera. 

He  spent  the  first  part  of  the  summer  night 
wandering  aimlessly  up  and  down  his  own  bank, 
blind  to  the  beauty  of  the  moonlight,  deaf  to  the 
songs  of  the  nightingales,  his  mind  filled  with  one 
thought.  An  hour  after  midnight  he  went  home 


1 1 8  The  Waters  of  Edera 

and  let  himself  into  the  silent  house  by  a  small 
door  which  opened  at  the  back,  and  which  he 
used  on  such  rare  occasions  as  he  stayed  out  late. 
He  struck  a  match  and  went  up  to  his  room,  and 
threw  himself,  dressed,  upon  his  bed.  His  mother 
was  listening  for  his  return,  but  she  did  not  call 
to  him.  She  knew  he  was  a  man  now,  and  must 
be  left  to  his  own  will. 

"  What  ails  Adone  that  he  is  not  home?  "  had 
asked  old  Gianna.  Clelia  Alba  had  been  herself 
perturbed  by  his  absence  at  that  hour,  but  she  had 
answered : 

"  What  he  likes  to  tell,  he  tells.  Prying  ques- 
tions make  false  tongues.  I  have  never  ques- 
tioned him  since  he  was  breeched." 

"  There  are  not  many  women  like  you,"  had 
said  Gianna,  partly  in  admiration,  half  in  im- 
patience. 

"  Adone  is  a  boy  for  you  and  me,"  had  replied 
his  mother.  "  But  for  himself  and  for  all  oth- 
ers he  is  a  man.  We  must  remember  it." 

Gianna  had  muttered  mumbled,  rebellious 
words ;  he  did  not  seem  other  than  a  child  to  her ; 
she  had  been  one  of  those  present  at  his  birth  bn 
the  shining  sands  of  the  Edera. 

He  could  not  sleep.  He  could  only  listen  to  the 
distant  murmur  of  the  river.  With  dawn  the 
women  awoke.  Nerina  came  running  down  the 
steep  stone  stair  and  went  to  let  out  and  feed  her 
charges,  the  fowls.  Gianna  went  to  the  well  in 


The  V/aters  of  Edera  1 1 9 

the  court  with  her  bronze  pitcher  and  pail.  Clelia 
Alba  cut  great  slices  of  bread  at  the  kitchen  table 
and  hooked  the  cauldron  of  maize  flour  to  the 
chain  above  the  fire  on  the  kitchen  hearth.  He 
could  not  wait  for  their  greetings,  their  ques- 
tions, the  notice  which  his  changed  mien  would 
surely  attract.  For  the  first  time  in  all  his 
twenty-four  years  of  life  he  went  out  of  the  house 
without  a  word  to  his  mother,  and  took  his  way 
to  the  river  again ;  for  the  first  time  he  was  neg- 
lectful of  his  cattle  and  forgetful  of  the  land. 

Nerina  came  in  from  the  fowl-house  with 
alarm  on  her  face. 

"  Madama  Clelia !  "  she  said  timidly,  "  Adone 
has  gone  away  without  feeding  and  watering  the 
oxen.  May  I  do  it?  " 

"  Can  you  manage  them,  little  one?  " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  they  love  me." 

"  Go  then ;  but  take  care." 

"  She  is  a  good  child !  "  said  Gianna.  "  The 
beasts  won't  hurt  her.  They  know  their  friends." 

Clelia  Alba,  to  whom  her  own  and  her  son's 
dignity  was  dear,  said  nothing  of  her  own  dis- 
pleasure and  surprise  at  Adone's  absence.  But 
she  was  only  the  more  distressed  by  it.  Never 
since  he  had  been  old  enough  to  work  at  all  had 
he  been  missing  in  the  hours  of  labour. 

"  I  only  pray,"  she  thought,  "  that  no  woman 
may  have  hold  of  him." 

Adone  hardly  knew  what  he  did ;  he  was  like  a 


1 20  The  Waters  of  Edera 

man  who  has  had  a  blow  on  the  temple ;  his  sight 
was  troubled;  his  blood  seemed  to  burn  in  his 
brain.  He  wandered  from  habit  through  the 
fields  and  down  to  the  river,  to  the  spot  where 
from  his  infancy  he  had  been  used  to  bathe.  He 
took  off  his  clothes  and  waded  into  the  water, 
which  was  cold  as  snow  after  the  night.  The 
shock  of  the  cold  and  the  sense  of  the  running 
current  laving  his  limbs,  restored  him  in  a  measure 
to  himself.  He  swam  down  the  stream  in  the 
shadow  of  the  early  morning.  The  air  was  full 
of  the  scent  of  dog-roses  and  flowering  thyme ;  he 
turned  on  his  back  and  floated ;  between  him  and 
the  sky  a  hawk  passed ;  the  bell  of  the  church  was 
tolling  for  the  diurnal  mass.  He  ran  along  in  the 
sun  as  it  grew  warm,  to  dry  his  skin  by  move- 
ment, as  his  wont  was.  He  was  still  stupefied  by 
the  fear  which  had  fallen  upon  him ;  but  the  water 
had  cooled  and  braced  him. 

He  had  forgotten  his  mother,  the  cattle,  the 
labours  awaiting  him;  his  whole  mind  was 
absorbed  in  this  new  horror  sprung  up  in  his 
path,  none  knew  from  where,  or  by  whom 
begotten.  The  happy,  unconscious  stream  ran 
singing  at  his  feet  as  the  nightingale  sang  in  the 
acacia  thickets,  its  brown  mountain  water  grow- 
ing green  and  limpid  as  it  passed  over  submerged 
grass  and  silver  sand. 

How  could  any  thieves  conspire  to  take  it  from 
the  country  in  which  it  was  born?  How  could 


The  Waters  of  Edera  121 

any  dare  to  catch  it  and  imprison  it  and  put  it  to 
vile  uses?  It  was  a  living  thing,  a  free  thing,  a 
precious  thing,  more  precious  than  jewel  or  gold. 
Both  jewels  and  gold  the  law  protected.  Could  it 
not  protect  the  Edera? 

"  Something  must  be  done,"  he  said  to  himself. 
"But  what?" 

He  had  not  the  faintest  knowledge  of  what 
could  or  should  be  done ;  he  regretted  that  he  had 
not  written  his  mark  with  the  horns  and  the  hoofs 
of  his  oxen  on  the  foreign  invaders;  they  might 
never  again  fall  into  his  power. 

He  had  never  felt  before  such  ferocious  or  cruel 
instincts  as  arose  in  him  now.  Don  Silverio 
seemed  to  him  tame  and  lukewarm  before  this 
monstrous  conspiracy  of  strangers.  He  knew 
that  a  priest  must  not  give  way  to  anger;  yet  it 
seemed  to  him  that  even  a  priest  should  be  roused 
to  fury  here;  there  was  a  wrath  which  was  holy. 

When  he  was  clothed  he  stood  and  looked 
down  at  the  gliding  stream. 

A  feeble,  cracked  voice  called  to  him  from  the 
opposite  bank. 

"  Adone,  my  lad,  what  is  this  tale?  " 

The  speaker  was  an  old  man  of  eighty  odd 
years,  a  native  of  Ruscino,  one  Patrizio  Cambi, 
who  was  not  yet  too  feeble  to  cut  the  rushes  and 
osiers,  and  maintained  a  widowed  daughter  and 
her  young  children  by  that  means. 

"What  tale?"  said  Adone,  unwilling   to   be 


122  The  Waters  of  Edera 

roused  from  his  own    dark   thoughts.     "  What 
tale,  Trizio?" 

'*  That  they  are  going  to  meddle  with  the 
river,"  answered  the  old  man.  "  They  can't  do  it, 
can  they  ?  " 

"  What  have  you  heard?  " 

"  That  they  are  going  to  meddle  with  the 
river." 

"In  what  way?" 

"  The  Lord  knows,  or  the  devil.  There  was  a 
waggon  with  four  horses  came  as  near  as  it  could 
get  to  us  in  the  woods  yonder  by  Ruffo's,  and  the 
driver  told  Ruffo  that  the  gentry  he  drove  had 
come  by  road  from  that  town  by  the  sea — I 
forget  its  name — in  order  to  see  the  river,  this 
river,  our  river,  and  that  he  had  brought  another 
posse  of  gentry  two  weeks  or  more  on  the  same 
errand,  and  that  they  were  a-measuring  and 
a-plumbing  it,  and  that  they  were  going  to  get 
possession  of  it  somehow  or  other,  but  Ruffo 
could  not  hear  anything  more  than  that;  and  I 
supposed  that  you  knew,  because  this  part  of  it  is 
yours  if  it  be  any  man's ;  this  part  of  it  that  runs 
through  the  Terra  Vergine." 

"  Yes,  it  is  mine,"  answered  Adone  very 
slowly.  "  It  is  mine  here,  and  it  was  once  ours 
from  source  to  sea." 

"  Aye,  it  is  ours !  "  said  old  Trizio  Cambi  mis- 
taking him.  He  was  a  man  once  tall,  but  now 
nearly  bent  double ;  he  had  a  harsh  wrinkled  face, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 23 

brown  as  a  hazel  nut,  and  he  was  nearly  a  skele- 
ton ;  but  he  had  eyes  which  were  still  fine  and  still 
had  some  fire  in  them.  In  his  youth  he  had  been 
a  Garibaldino. 

"  It  is  ours,"  repeated  Trizio.  "  At  least  if 
anything  belongs  to  poor  folks.  What  say  you, 
Adone?" 

"  Much  belongs  to  the  poor,  but  others  take  it 
from  them,"  said  Adone.  "  You  have  seen  a 
hawk  take  a  sparrow,  Trizio.  The  poor  count 
no  more  than  the  sparrows." 

"  But  the  water  is  the  gift  of  God,"  said  the 
old  man. 

Adone  did  not  answer. 

"  What  can  we  do  ?  "  said  Trizio,  wiping  the 
dew  off  his  sickle.  "Who  knows  aught  of  us? 
Who  cares?  If  the  rich  folks  want  the  river  they 
will  take  it,  curse  them !  " 

Adone  did  not  answer.  He  knew  that  it  was 
so,  all  over  the  earth. 

"  We  shall  know  no  more  than  birds  tangled  in 
a  net,"  said  Trizio.  "  They  will  come  and  work 
their  will." 

Adone  rose  up  out  of  the  grass.  "  I  will  go 
and  see  Ruffo,"  he  said.  He  was  glad  to  do  some- 
thing. 

"  Ruffo  knows  no  more  than  that,"  said  Trizio 
angrily,  "  The  driver  of  the    horses    knew    no 
more." 
.  Adone  paid  him  no  heed,  but  began  to  push  his 


1 24  The  Waters  of  Edera 

way  through  the  thick  network  of  the  interlaced 
heather.  He  thought  that  perhaps  Ruffo,  a  man 
who  made  wooden  shoes  and  hoops  for  casks  and 
shaped  chestnut  poles  for  vines,  might  tell  him 
more  than  had  been  told  to  old  Trizio ;  might  at 
least  be  able  to  suggest  from  what  quarter  and  in 
what  shape  this  calamity  was  rising  to  burst  over 
their  valley  as  a  hailstorm  broods  above,  then 
breaks  on  helpless  fields  and  defenceless  gardens, 
beating  down  without  warning  the  birds  and  the 
blossoms  of  spring. 

When  he  had  been  in  Lombardy  he  had  seen 
once  a  great  steam-engine  at  work,  stripping  a 
moorland  of  its  natural  growth  and  turning  it 
into  ploughed  land.  He  remembered  how  the 
huge  machine  with  its  stench  of  oil  and  fire  had 
forced  its  way  through  the  furze  and  ferns  and 
wild  roses  and  myrtle,  and  torn  them  up  and 
flung  them  on  one  side,  and  scattered  and 
trampled  all  the  insect  life  and  all  the  bird  life  and 
all  the  hares  and  field  mice  and  stoats  and  hedge- 
hogs who  made  their  home  there.  "  A  fine  sight," 
a  man  had  said  to  him ;  and  he  had  answered,  "  a 
cursed  wickedness."  Was  this  what  they  would 
do  to  the  vale  of  Edera?  If  they  took  the  river 
they  could  not  spare  the  land.  He  felt  scared, 
bruised,  terrified,  like  one  of  these  poor  moorland 
hares.  He  remembered  a  poor  stoat  who,  startled 
out  of  its  sleep,  had  turned  and  bitten  one  of  the 


The  Waters  of  Edera  125 

iron  wheels  of  the  machine,  and  the  wheel  had 
gone  over  it  and  crushed  it  into  a  mass  of  blood 
and  fur.  He  was  as  furious  and  as  helpless  as  the 
stoat  had  been. 

When  he  had  walked  the  four  miles  which  sepa- 
rated the  Terra  Vergine  from  the  chestnut  woods 
where  the  maker  of  wooden  shoes  lived,  he  heard 
nothing  else  from  Ruffo  than  this:  that  gentle- 
men had  come  from  Teramo  to  study  the  Edera 
water;  they  were  going  to  turn  it  aside  and  use 
it ;  more  than  that  the  man  who  had  driven  them 
had  not  heard  and  could  not  explain. 

"  There  were  four  horses,  and  he  had  nothing 
to  give  them  but  water  and  grass,"  said  the 
cooper.  "  The  gentry  brought  wine  and  food  for 
themselves.  They  came  the  day  before  yesterday 
and  slept  here.  They  went  away  this  morning. 
They  paid  me  well,  oh,  very  well.  I  did  what  I 
could  for  them.  It  is  five-and-twenty  miles  if  one 
off  Teramo,  aye,  nearer  thirty.  They  followed 
the  old  posting  road ;  but  you  know  where  it  enters 
the  woods  it  is  all  overgrown  and  gone  to  rack 
and  ruin  from  want  of  use.  In  my  grandfather's 
time  it  was  a  fine  well-kept  highway,  with  post- 
houses  every  ten  miles,  though  a  rare  place  for 
robbery,  but  nowadays  nobody  wants  it  at  all,  for 
nobody  comes  or  goes.  It  will  soon  be  blocked,  so 
the  driver  says:  it  will  soon  be  quite  choked  up 
what  with  brambles,  and  rocks,  and  fallen  trees, 


1 26  The  Waters  of  Edera 

and  what  not.  He  was  black  with  rage,  for  he  was 
obliged  to  go  back  as  he  had  come,  and  he  said  he 
had  been  cheated  into  the  job." 

Adone  listened  wearily  to  the  garrulous  Ruffo, 
who  emphasised  each  phrase  with  a  blow  of  his 
little  hammer  on  a  shoe.  He  had  wasted  all  his 
morning  hours  and  learned  nothing.  He  felt  like 
a  man  who  is  lost  in  a  strange  and  deserted 
country  at  night ;  he  could  find  no  clue,  could  see 
no  light.  Perhaps  if  he  went  to  the  seaport  town 
which  was  the  Prefecture,  he  might  hear  some- 
thing? 

But  he  had  never  left  the  valley  of  the  Edera 
except  for  that  brief  time  which  he  had  passed 
under  arms  in  the  north.  He  felt  that  he  had  no 
means,  no  acquaintance,  no  knowledge,  whereby 
he  could  penetrate  the  mystery  of  this  scheme. 
He  did  not  even  know  the  status  of  the  promoters, 
or  the  scope  of  their  speculation.  The  city 
was  a  port  on  the  Adriatic  with  considerable 
trade  to  the  Dalmatian  and  Greek  coasts,  but  he 
scarcely  knew  its  name.  If  he  went  there  what 
could  he  do  or  learn?  Would  the  stones  speak, 
or  the  waves  tell  that  which  he  thirsted  to  know? 
What  use  was  the  martial  blood  in  his  veins  ?  He 
could  not  strike  an  invisible  foe. 

"  Don't  go  to  meet  trouble  half  way,"  said  the 
man  Ruffo,  meaning  well.  "I  may  have  mistaken 
the  driver.  They  cannot  take  hold  of  a  river,  how 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 27 

should  they?  Water  slips  through  your  fingers. 
Where  it  was  set  running  in  the  beginning  of  the 
world,  there  it  will  go  on  running  till  the  crack  of 
doom.  Let  them  look;  let  them  prate;  they  can't 
take  it." 

But  Adone's  reason  would  not  allow  him  to  be 
so  consoled. 

He  understood  a  little  of  what  hydraulic  science 
can  compass;  he  knew  what  canalisation  meant, 
and  its  assistance  to  traffic  and  trade ;  he  had  seen 
the  waterworks  on  the  Po,  on  the  Adige,  on  the 
Mincio ;  he  had  heard  how  the  Velino  had  been  en- 
slaved for  the  steel  foundry  of  Terni,  how  the 
Nerino  fed  the  ironworks  of  Narni ;  he  had  seen 
the  Adda  captive  at  Lodi,  and  the  lakes  held  in 
bond  at  Mantua ;  he  had  read  of  the  water  drawn 
from  Monte  Amiata,  and  not  very  many  miles  off 
him  in  the  Abruzzo  was  the  hapless  Fuscino, 
which  had  been  emptied  and  dried  up  by  rich 
meddlers  of  Rome. 

He  knew  also  enough  of  the  past  to  know  how 
water  had  been  forced  to  serve  the  will  and  the 
wants  of  the  Roman  Consulate  and  the  Roman 
Empire,  of  how  the  marble  aqueducts  had  cast 
the  shadow  of  their  arches  over  the  land,  and 
how  the  provinces  had  been  tunnelled  and 
bridged  and  canalised  and  irrigated  during  two 
thousand  years  by  those  whose  bones  were  dust 
under  the  Latin  soil.  He  could  not  wholly 


1 28  The  Waters  of  Edera 

cheat  himself  as  these  unlettered  men  could  do; 
he  knew  that  if  the  commerce  which  had  succeeded 
the  Caesars  as  ruler  of  the  world  coveted  the 
waters  of  Edera,  the  river  was  lost  to  the  home  of 
its  birth  and  to  him. 

"  How  shall  I  tell  my  mother?  "  he  asked  him- 
self as  he  walked  back  through  the  fragrant  and 
solitary  country.  He  felt  ashamed  at  his  own 
helplessness  and  ignorance.  If  courage  could 
have  availed  anything  he  would  not  have  been 
wanting;  but  all  that  was  needed  here  was  a 
worldly  and  technical  knowledge,  of  which  he  pos- 
sessed no  more  than  did  the  trout  in  the  stream. 

As  he  neared  his  home,  pushing  his  way  labor- 
iously through  the  interlaced  bracken  which  had 
never  been  cut  for  a  score  of  years,  he  saw  ap- 
proaching him  the  tall,  slender  form  of  Don  Sil- 
verio,  moving  slowly,  for  the  heather  was  breast 
high,  his  little  dog  barking  at  a  startled  wood- 
pigeon. 

"  They  are  anxious  about  you  at  your  house," 
Don  Silverio  said  with  some  sternness.  "  Is  it 
well  to  cause  your  mother  this  disquietude?  " 

"  No,  it  is  not  well," replied  Adone.  "  But  how 
can  I  see  her  and  not  tell  her,  and  how  can  I  tell 
her  this  thing?" 

"  Women  to  bear  trouble  are  braver  than  men," 
said  the  priest.  "  They  have  more  patience  in 
pain  than  we.  I  have  said  something  to  her ;  but 


The  Waters  of  Edera  129 

we  need  not  yet  despair.  We  know  nothing  of 
any  certainty.  Sometimes  such  schemes  are  aban- 
doned at  the  last  moment  because  too  costly  or 
too  unremunerative.  Sometimes  they  drag  on  for 
half  a  lifetime;  and  at  the  end  nothing  comes  of 
them." 

"  You  have  told  my  mother?  " 

"  I  told  her  what  troubles  you,  and  made  you 
leave  your  work  undone.  The  little  girl  was  feed- 
ing the  cattle." 

Adone  coloured.  He  was  conscious  of  the  im- 
plied rebuke. 

"  Sir,"  he  said  in  a  low  tone,  "  if  this  accursed 
thing  comes  to  pass  what  will  become  of  us? 
What  I  said  in  my  haste  last  night  I  say  in  cold 
reason  to-day." 

"  Then  you  are  wrong,  and  you  will  turn  a 
calamity  into  a  curse.  Men  often  do  so." 

"  It  is  more  than  a  calamity." 

"  Perhaps.  Would  not  some  other  grief  be  yet 
worse?  If  you  were  stricken  with  blindness?  " 

"  No ;  I  should  still  hear  the  river  running." 

Don  Silverio  looked  at  him.  He  saw  by  the 
set,  sleepless,  reckless  look  on  his  face  that  the 
young  man  was  in  no  mood  to  be  reached  by  any 
argument,  or  to  be  susceptible  to  either  rebuke  or 
consolation.  The  time  might  come  when  he 
would  be  so ;  but  that  time  was  far  off,  he  feared. 
The  evenness,  the  simplicity,  the  loneliness  of 


130  The  Waters  of  Edera 

Adone's  existence,  made  it  open  to  impressions, 
and  absorbed  by  them,  as  busy  and  changeful  lives 
never  are;  it  was  like  the  heather  plants  around 
them,  it  would  not  bear  transplanting;  its  birth- 
place would  be  its  tomb. 

"  Let  us  go  back  to  your  mother,"  he  said. 
"  Why  should  you  shun  her  ?  What  you  feel  she 
feels  also.  Why  leave  her  alone?" 

"  I  will  go  home,"  said  Adone. 

"  Yes,  come  home.  You  must  see  that  there  is 
nothing  to  be  done  or  to  be  learned  as  yet.  When 
they  know  anything  fresh  at  San  Beda  they  will 
let  me  know.  The  Prior  is  a  man  of  good  faith." 

Adone  turned  on  him  almost  savagely;  his  eyes 
were  full  of  sullen  anger. 

"  And  I  am  to  bear  my  days  like  this  ?  Know- 
ing nothing,  hearing  nothing,  doing  nothing  to 
protect  the  water  that  is  as  dear  to  me  as  a 
brother,  and  the  land  which  is  my  own?  What 
will  the  land  be  without  the  river?  You  forget, 
sir,  you  forget !  " 

"  No,  I  do  not  forget,"  said  Don  Silverio  with- 
out offence.  "  But  I  ask  you  to  hear  reason. 
What  can  you  possibly  do?  Think  you  no  man 
has  been  wronged  before  you?  Think  you  that 
you  alone  here  will  suffer?  The  village  will  be 
ruined.  Do  you  feel  for  yourself  alone?  " 

Adone  seemed  scarcely  to  hear.    He  was  like  a 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 3 1 

man  in  a  fever  who  sees  one  set  of  images  and 
cannot  see  anything  else. 

"  Sir,"  he  said  suddenly,  "  why  will  you  not  go 
to  Rome?" 

"  To  Rome?  "  echoed  the  priest  in  amazement. 

"  There  alone  can  the  truth  of  this  thing  be 
learned,"  said  Adone.  "  It  is  to  Rome  that  the 
promoters  of  this  scheme  must  carry  it;  there  to 
be  permitted  or  forbidden  as  the  Government 
chooses.  All  these  things  are  brought  about  by 
bribes,  by  intrigues,  by  union.  Without  authority 
from  high  office  they  cannot  be  done.  We  here 
do  not  even  know  who  are  buying  or  selling 

"  No,  we  do  not,"  said  Don  Silverio ;  and  he 
thought,  "  When  the  cart-horse  is  bought  by  the 
knacker  what  matter  to  him  the  name  of  his 
purchaser  or  his  price?  " 

"  Sir,"  said  Adone,  with  passionate  entreaty. 
"  Do  go  to  Rome.  There  alone  can  the  truth  be 
learnt.  You,  a  learned  man,  can  find  means  to 
meet  learned  people.  I  would  go,  I-  would  have 
gone  yesternight,  but  when  I  should  get  there  I 
know  no  more  than  a  stray  dog  where  to  go  or 
from  whom  to  inquire.  They  would  see  I  am  a 
country  fellow.  They  would  shut  the  doors  in  my 
face.  But  you  carry  respect  with  you.  No  one 
would  dare  to  flout  you.  You  could  find  ways 


132  The  Waters  of  Edera 

and  means  to  know  who  moves  this  scheme,  how 
far  it  is  advanced,  what  chance  there  is  of  our  de- 
feating it.  Go,  I  beseech  you,  go !  " 

"  My  son,  you  amaze  me,"  said  Don  Silverio. 
"  I  ?  In  Rome  ?  I  have  not  stirred  out  of  this  dis- 
trict for  eighteen  years.  I  am  nothing.  I  have 
no  voice.  I  have  no  weight.  I  am  a  poor  rural 
vicar  buried  here  for  punishment." 

He  stopped  abruptly,  for  no  complaint  of  the 
injustice  from  which  he  suffered  had  ever  in  those 
eighteen  years  escaped  him. 

"  Go,  go,"  said  Adone.  "  You  carry  respect 
with  you.  You  are  learned  and  will  know  how 
to  find  those  in  power  and  how  to  speak  to  them. 
Go,  go !  Have  pity  on  all  of  us,  your  poor  help- 
less menaced  people." 

Don  Silverio  was  silent. 

Was  it  now  his  duty  to  go  into  the  haunts  of 
men,  as  it  had  been  his  duty  to  remain  shut  up  in 
the  walls  of  Ruscino  ?  The  idea  appalled  him. 

Accomplished  and  self-possessed  though  he 
was,  his  fine  mind  and  his  fine  manners  had  not 
served  wholly  to  protect  him  from  that  rust  and 
nervousness  which  come  from  the  disuse  of  soci- 
ety and  the  absence  of  intercourse  with  equals. 

It  seemed  to  him  impossible  that  he  could  again 
enter  cities,  recall  usages,  seek  out  acquaintances, 
move  in  the  stir  of  streets,  and  wait  in  ante- 
chambers. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  133 

That  was  the  life  of  the  world;  he  had  done 
with  it,  forsworn  it  utterly,  both  by  order  of  his 
superiors  and  by  willing  self-sacrifice.  Yet  he 
knew  that  Adone  was  right.  It  was  only  from 
men  of  the  world  and  amongst  them,  it  was  only 
in  the  great  cities  that  it  was  possible  to  follow 
up  the  clue  of  such  speculations  as  now  threatened 
the  vale  of  Edera. 

The  young  man  he  knew  could  not  do  what 
was  needed,  and  certainly  would  get  no  hearing, 
a  peasant  of  the  Abruzzi  border  who  looked  like 
a  figure  of  Giorgione's,  and  would  probably  be 
arrested  as  an  anarchist  if  he  were  to  endeavour 
to  enter  any  great  house  or  public  office.  But  to 
go  to  Rome  himself!  To  revisit  the  desecrated 
city!  This  seemed  to  him  a  pilgrimage  impos- 
sible except  for  the  holiest  purpose.  He  felt  as  if 
the  very  stones  of  Trastevere  would  rise  up  and 
laugh  at  him,  a  country  priest  with  the  moss  and 
the  mould  of  a  score  of  years  passed  in  rural  ob- 
scurity upon  him.  Moreover,  to  revisit  Rome 
would  be  to  tear  open  wounds  long  healed.  There 
his  studious  youth  had  been  passed,  and  there  his 
ambitious  dreams  had  been  dreamed. 

"'  I  cannot  go  to  Rome,"  he  said  abruptly.  "Do 
not  ask  me,  I  cannot  go  to  Rome." 

"  Then  I  will  go,"  said  Adone,  "  and  if  in  no 
other  way  I  will  force  myself  into  the  king's 
palace  and  make  him  hear." 


134  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  And  his  guards  will  seize  you,  and  his  judges 
will  chain  you  up  in  a  solitary  cell  for  life!  Do 
not  say  such  mad  things.  What  could  the  king 
reply  even  if  he  listened,  which  he  would  not  do? 
He  would  say  that  these  things  were  for  ministers 
and  prefects  and  surveyors,  and  engineers  to 
judge  of  not  for  him  or  you.  Be  reasonable, 
Adone;  do  not  speak  or  act  like  a  fool.  This  is 
the  first  grief  you  have  known  in  your  life,  and 
you  are  distraught  by  it.  That  is  natural  enough, 
my  poor  boy.  But  you  exaggerate  the  danger. 
It  must  be  far  off  as  yet.  It  is  a  mere  project." 

"  And  I  am  to  remain  here,  tilling  the  land  in 
silence  and  inaction  until  one  day  without  notice 
I  shall  see  a  crowd  of  labourers  at  work  upon  the 
river,  and  shall  see  appraisers  measuring  my 
fields!  You  know  that  is  how  things  are  done. 
You  know  the  poor  are  always  left  in  the  dark 
until  all  is  ripe  for  their  robbery.  Look  you,  sir, 
if  you  go  to  Rome  I  will  wait  in  such  patience  as 
I  can  for  whatever  you  may  learn.  But  if  you  do 
not  go,  I  go,  and  if  I  can  do  no  better  I  will  take 
the  king  by  the  throat." 

"  I  have  a  mind  to  take  you  by  the  throat  my- 
self," said  Don  Silverio,  with  an  irritation  which 
he  found  it  hard  to  control.  "  Well,  I  will  think 
over  what  you  wish,  and  if  I  find  it  possible,  if 
I  think  it  justified,  if  I  can  afford  the  means,  if  I 
can  obtain  the  permission  for  such  a  journey,  I 


The  Waters  of  Edera  135 

will  go  to  Rome ;  for  your  sake,  for  your  mother's 
sake.  I  will  let  you  know  my  decision  later. 
Let  us  walk  homeward.  The  sun  is  low.  At 
your  house  the  three  women  must  be  anxious." 

Adone  accompanied  him  in  silence  through  the 
heather,  of  which  the  blossoming  expanse  was 
reddening  in  the  light  of  the  late  afternoon  until 
the  land  looked  a  ruby  ocean.  They  did  not 
speak  again  until  they  reached  the  confines  of  the 
Terra  Vergine. 

Then  Don  Silverio  took  the  path  which  went 
through  the  pasture  to  the  bridge,  and  Adone 
turned  towards  his  own  dwelling. 

"  Spare  your  mother.  Speak  gently,"  said  the 
elder  man;  the  younger  man  made  a  sign  of  as- 
sent and  of  obedience. 

"  He  will  go  to  Rome,"  said  Adone  to  himself, 
and  almost  he  regretted  that  he  had  urged  the 
journey,  for  in  his  own  veins  the  fever  of  unrest 
and  the  sting  of  fierce  passions  were  throbbing, 
and  he  panted  and  pined  for  action.  He  was  the 
heir  of  the  lords  of  the  river.. 


VIII 

LIKE  the  cooper  Ruffo,  Clelia  Alba  had  re- 
ceived the  tidings  with  incredulity,  though  aghast 
at  the  mere  suggestion. 

"  It  is  impossible,"  she  said.  She  had  seen  the 
water  there  ever  since  she  had  been  a  babe  in 
swaddling  clothes. 

"  It  is  not  possible,"  she  said,  "  that  any  man 
could  be  profane  enough  to  alter  the  bed  which 
heaven  had  given  it." 

But  she  was  sorely  grieved  to  see  the  effect 
such  a  fear  had  upon  Adone. 

"  I  was  afraid  it  was  a  woman,"  she  thought ; 
"  but  this  thing,  could  it  be  true,  would  be  worse 
than  any  harlot  or  adulteress.  If  they  took  away 
the  river  the  land  would  perish.  It  lives  by  the 
river." 

"  The  river  is  our  own  as  far  as  we  touch  it," 
she  said  aloud  to  her  son ;  "  but  it  was  the  earth's 
before  it  was  ours.  To  sever  water  from  the  land 
it  lives  in  were  worse  than  to  snatch  a  child  from 
its  mother's  womb." 

Adone  did  not  tell  her  that  water  was  no  more 
sacred  than  land  to  the  modern  constructor.    She 
136 


The  Waters  of  Edera  137 

would  learn  that  all  too  soon  if  the  conspiracy 
ag-ainst  the  Edera  succeeded.  But  he  tried  to 
learn  from  her  what  legal  rights  they  possessed  to 
the  stream:  what  had  his  father  thought? 
He  knew  well  that  his  old  hereditary  claim  to  the 
Lordship  of  Ruscino.  however  capable  of  proof, 
would  be  set  aside  as  fantastic  and  untenable ;  but 
their  claim  to  the  water  through  the  holding  of 
Terra  Vergine  could  surely  not  be  set  aside. 

"  Your  father  never  said  aught  about  the  water 
that  I  can  remember,"  she  answered.  "  I  think 
he  would  no  more  have  thought  it  needful  to  say 
it  was  his  than  to  say  that  you  were  his  son.  It 
is  certain  we  are  writ  down  in  the  district  as  own- 
ers of  the  ground;  we  pay  taxes  for  it;  and  the 
title  of  the  water  must  be  as  one  with  that." 

"  So  say  I ;  at  least  over  what  runs  through 
our  fields  we  alone  have  any  title,  and  for  that  title 
I  will  fight  to  the  death,"  said  Adone.  "  River 
rights  go  with  the  land  through  which  the  river 
passed." 

"  But,  my  son,"  she  said  with  true  wisdom, 
"  your  father  would  never  have  allowed  any 
danger  to  the  water  to  make  him  faithless  to  the 
land.  If  you  let  this  threat,  this  dread,  turn  you 
away  from  your  work,  if  you  let  your  fears  make 
you  neglect  your  fields  and  your  olives,  and  your 
cattle  and  your  vines,  you  will  do  more  harm  to 
yourself  than  the  worst  enemy  can  do  you.  To 


138  The  Waters  of  Edera 

leave  a  farm  to  itself  is  to  call  down  the  vengeance 
of  heaven.  A  week's  abandonment  undoes  the 
work  of  years.  I  and  Gianna  and  the  child  do 
what  we  can,  but  we  are  women,  and  Nerina  is 
young." 

"  I  will  do  what  I  can,  mother,"  replied  Adone 
humbly.  "  But  of  what  use  is  it  to  dress  and 
manure  a  vine,  if  the  accursed  phylloxera  be  in  its 
sap  and  at  its  root?  What  use  is  it  to  till  these 
lands  if  they  be  doomed  to  perish  from  thirst?  " 

"  Do  your  best,"  said  his  mother,  "  then  the 
fault  will  not  lie  with  you,  whatever  happen." 

The  counsel  was  sound;  but  to  Adone  all 
savour  and  hope  were  gone  out  of  his  labour. 
When  he  saw  the  green  gliding  water  shine 
through  the  olive  branches  and  beyond  the  foliage 
of  the  walnut-trees  his  arms  fell  nerveless  to  his 
side,  his  throat  swelled  with  sobs,  which  he 
checked  as  they  rose,  but  which  were  only  the 
more  bitter  for  that — all  the  joy  and  the  peace  of 
his  day's  work  were  gone. 

It  was  but  a  small  space  of  it  to  one  whose  an- 
cestors had  reigned  over  the  stream  from  its  rise 
in  the  oak  woods  to  its  fall  into  the  sea:  but  he 
thought  that  no  one  could  dispute  or  diminish  or 
disregard  his  exclusive  possession  of  the  Edera 
water  where  it  ran  through  his  fields.  They  could 
not  touch  that  even  if  they  seized  it  lower  down 
where  it  ran  through  other  communes.  Were 


The  Waters  of  Edera  139 

they  to  take  it  above  his  land,  above  the  bridge 
of  Ruscino,  its  bed  here  would  be  dried  up  and 
his  homestead  and  the  village  both  be  ruined. 
The  clear,  intangible  right  which  he  meant  to  de- 
fend at  any  cost,  in  any  manner,  was  his  right  to 
have  the  river  run  untouched  through  his  fields. 
The  documents  which  proved  the  rights  of  the 
great  extinct  Seigneury  might  be  useless,  but  the 
limited,  shrunken  right  of  the  present  ownership 
was  as  unassailable  as  his  mother's  right  to  the 
three  strings  of  pearls;  or  so  he  believed. 

The  rights  of  the  Lords  of  Ruscino  might  be 
but  shadows  of  far-off  things,  things  of  tradition, 
of  history,  of  romance,  but  the  rights  of  the  peas- 
ant proprietors  of  the  Terra  Vergine  must,  he 
thought,  be  respected  if  there  were  any  justice 
upon  earth,  for  they  were  plainly  writ  down  in  the 
municipal  registers  of  San  Beda.  To  rouse  others 
to  defend  their  equal  rights  in  the  same  way  from 
the  source  of  the  Edera  to  its  union  with  the  Adri- 
atic seemed  to  him  the  first  effort  to  be  made.  He 
was  innocent  enough  to  believe  that  it  would  suf- 
fice to  prove  that  its  loss  would  be  their  ruin  to 
obtain  redress  at  once. 

Whilst  Don  Silverio  was  still  hesitating  as  to 
what  seemed  to  him  this  momentous  and  painful 
journey  to  Rome  his  mind  was  made  up  by  a 
second  letter  received  from  the  Superior  of  the 
Certosa  at  San  Beda,  the  friend  to  whom  he  had 


140  The  Waters  of  Edera 

confided  the  task  of  inquiring  as  to  the  project  for 
the  Edera. 

The  letter  was  long,  and  in  Latin.  They  were 
two  classics,  who  liked  thus  to  refresh  themselves 
and  each  other  with  epistles  such  as  St.  Augustine 
or  Tertullian  might  have  penned.  The  letter  was 
of  elegant  scholarship,  but  its  contents  were  un- 
welcome. It  said  that  the  Most  Honourable  the 
Syndic  of  San  Beda  had  enjoyed  a  conference  with 
the  Prefect  of  the  province,  and  it  had  therein 
transpired  that  the  project  for  the  works  upon  the 
river  Edera  had  been  long  well  known  to  the 
Prefect,  and  that  such  project  was  approved  by 
the  existing  Government,  and  therefore  by  all  the 
Government  officials,  as  was  but  natural.  It  was 
not  admitted  that  the  Commune  of  San  Beda  had 
any  local  interest  or  local  right  sufficiently  strong 
to  oppose  the  project,  as  such  a  claim  would 
amount  to  a  monopoly,  and  no  monopoly 
could  exist  in  a  district  through  which  a  running 
river  partially  passed,  and  barely  one-fifth  of  the 
course  of  this  stream  lay  through  that  district 
known  as  the  valley  of  the  Edera.  The  entire 
Circondario  except  the  valley,  was  believed  to  be 
in  favour  of  the  project,  which  the  Prefect  in- 
formed the  Syndic  could  not  be  otherwise  than 
most  favourable  to  the  general  interests  of  the 
country  at  large. 

"  Therefore,     most    honoured    and     revered 


The  Waters  of  Edera  141 

friend,"  wrote  the  Superior  of  the  Cistercians,  his 
most  esteemed  worship  does  not  see  his  way  to 
himself  suggest  opposition  to  this  course  in  our 
Town  Council  or  in  our  Provincial  Council,  and 
the  Most  Worshipful  the  Assessors  do  not  either 
see  theirs;  it  being,  as  you  know,  an  equivocal 
and  onerous  thing  for  either  council  to  express  or 
suggest  in  their  assembly  views  antagonistic  to 
those  of  the  Prefecture,  so  that  I  fear,  most  hon- 
oured and  reverend  friend,  it  will  not  be  in  my 
power  farther  to  press  this  matter,  and  I  fear  also 
that  your  parish  of  Ruscino  being  isolated  and 
sparsely  populated,  and  its  chief  area  unculti- 
vated, will  be  possessed  of  but  one  small  voice  in 
this  matter,  the  interests  of  the  greater  number 
being  always  in  such  a  case  preferred." 

Don  Silverio  read  the  letter  twice,  its  stately 
and  correct  Latinity  not  serving  to  disguise  the 
mean  and  harsh  fact  of  its  truly  modern  logic. 
"  Because  we  are  few  and  poor  and  weak  we  have 
no  rights !  "  he  said  bitterly.  "  Because  the  water 
comes  from  others  and  goes  to  others  it  is  not 
ours  whilst  in  our  land !  " 

He  did  not  blame  his  friend  at  San  Beda. 

Ecclesiastics  existed  only  on  sufferance,  and 
any  day  the  Certosa  might  be  closed  if  its  inmates 
offended  the  ruling  powers.  But  the  letter,  never- 
theless, lay  like  a  stone  on  his  heart.  All  the 
harshness,  the  narrowness,  the  disregard  of  the 


142  The  Waters  of  Edera 

interests  of  the  weak ;  the  rude,  rough,  tyrannical 
pressing  onward  of  the  strong  to  their  own  selfish 
aims,  all  the  characteristics  of  the  modern  world 
seemed  to  find  voice  in  it  and  jeer  at  him. 

It  was  not  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  that  he 
had  pressed  against  the  iron  gates  of  interest  and 
formula  and  oppression,  and  only  bruised  his 
breast  and  torn  his  hands. 

He  had  a  little  sum  of  money  put  by  in  case 
of  illness  and  for  his  burial;  that  was  the  only 
fund  on  which  he  could  draw  to  take  him  to 
Rome  and  keep  him  when  there,  and  it  was  so 
small  that  it  would  soon  be  exhausted.  He  passed 
the  best  part  of  the  night  doubting  which  way 
his  duty  pointed.  He  fasted,  prayed,  and  com- 
muned with  his  soul,  and  at  length  it  seemed  to 
him  as  if  a  voice  from  without  said  to  him, 
"  Take  up  your  staff  and  go."  For  the  journey 
appalled  him,  and  where  his  inclination  pointed  he 
had  taught  himself  to  see  error.  He  shrank 
inexpressibly  from  going  into  the  noise  and  glare 
and  crowd  of  men;  he  clung  to  his  solitude  as  a 
timid  criminal  to  its  lair;  and  therefore  he  felt 
persuaded  that  he  ought  to  leave  Ruscino  on  his 
errand,  because  it  was  so  acutely  painful  to  him. 

Whilst  he  was  gone  Adone  at  least  would  do 
nothing  rash;  would  of  course  await  the  issue  of 
his  investigations.  Time  brings  council,  and  time 
he  hoped  would  in  this  instance  befriend  him.  He 


The  Waters  of  Edera  143 

had  already  obtained  the  necessary  permission  to 
leave  his  parish ;  he  then  asked  for  a  young  friend 
from  San  Beda  to  take  his  place  in  the  village; 
left  his  little  dog  to  the  care  of  Nerina;  took 
his  small  hoard  in  a  leathern  bag  strapped  to 
his  loins,  and  went  on  his  way  at  daybreak 
along  the  south-west  portion  of  the  valley, 
to  cover  on  foot  the  long  distance  which  lay 
between  him  and  the  nearest  place  at  which  a 
public  vehicle  went  twice  a  week  to  a  railway  sta- 
tion whence  he  could  take  the  train  to  Terni  and 
so  to  Rome. 

Adone  acccompanied  him  the  first  half  of  the 
way,  but  they  said  little  to  one  another;  their 
hearts  were  full.  Adone  could  not  forget  the 
rebuke  given  to  him,  and  Don  Silverio  was  too 
wise  a  man  to  lean  heavily  on  a  sore  and  aching 
wound,  or  repeat  counsels  already  given  and  re- 
jected. 

At  the  third  milestone  he  stopped  and  begged, 
in  a  tone  which  was  a  command,  the  young  man 
to  return  home. 

"  Do  not  leave  your  land  for  me,"  he  said. 
"  Every  hour  is  of  gold  at  this  season.  Go  back, 
my  son !  I  pray  that  I  may  bring  you  peace." 

"  Give  me  your  blessing,"  said  Adone  meekly, 
and  he  knelt  down  in  the  dust  of  the  roadside. 
His  friend  gave  it ;  then  their  hands  met  in  silent 
farewell. 


144  The  Waters  of  Edera 

The  sun  had  risen,  and  the  cold  clear  air  was 
yielding  to  its  rays.  The  young  man  reluctantly 
turned  back,  and  left  the  priest  to  go  onward 
alone,  a  tall,  dark  figure  in  the  morning  light ;  the 
river  running  between  acacia  thickets  and  rushes 
on  his  right.  Before  long  he  would  be  forced  to 
leave  the  course  of  the  stream,  and  ascend  a  rugged 
and  precipitous  road  which  mounted  southward 
and  westward  through  oak  woods  into  the  moun- 
tains between  the  Leonessa  and  Gran  Sasso,  until 
it  reached  a  shrunken,  desolate  village,  with 
fine  Etruscan  and  Roman  remains  left  to  per- 
ish, and  a  miserable  hostelry  with  the  miserable 
diligences  starting  from  it  on  alternate  days,  the 
only  remains  of  its  former  posting  activity.  There 
he  arrived  late  in  the  evening  and  broke  his  fast 
on  a  basin  of  bean  soup,  then  rested  on  a  bench, 
for  he  could  not  bring  himself  to  enter  the  filthy 
bed  which  was  alone  to  be  obtained,  and  spent  the 
following  morning  examining  the  ancient  ruins, 
for  the  conveyance  did  not  start  until  four  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon.  When  that  hour  came  he  made 
one  of  the  travellers ;  all  country  folks,  who  were 
packed  close  as  pigeons  in  a  crate  in  the  ram- 
shackle, noisy,  broken-down  vehicle,  which  lum- 
bered on  its  way  behind  its  lean  and  suffering 
horses  through  woods  and  hills  and  along  moun- 
tain passes  of  a  grandeur  and  a  beauty  on  which 
the  eyes  of  educated  travellers  rarely  looked. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  145 

The  journey  by  this  conveyance  occupied  seven 
hours,  and  he  was  obliged  to  wait  five  more  at 
that  village  station  which  was  the  nearest  point 
at  which  he  could  meet  the  train  which  went 
from  Terni  to  Rome.  Only  parliamentary  trains 
stop  at  such  obscure  places;  and  this  one  seemed 
to  him  slower  even  than  the  diligence  had  been. 
It  was  crammed  with  country  lads  going  to  the 
conscription  levy  in  the  capital:  some  of  them 
drunk,  some  of  them  noisy  and  quarrelsome,  some 
in  tears,  some  silent  and  sullen,  all  of  them  sad 
company.  The  dusty,  stinking,  sun-scorched 
waggons  open  one  to  another,  with  the  stench  of 
hot  unwashed  flesh,  and  the  clouds  of  dust  driven 
through  the  unglazed  windows  seemed  to  Don 
Silverio  a  hell  of  man's  own  making,  and  in  re- 
membrance his  empty  quiet  room,  with  its  vine- 
hung  window,  at  Ruscino  seemed  by  comparison 
a  lost  heaven. 

To  think  that  there  were  thousands  of  men 
who  travelled  thus  every  day  of  every  year  in 
every  country,  many  of  them  from  no  obligation 
whatever,  but  from  choice ! 

"  What  lunatics,  what  raving  idiots  we  should 
look  to  Plato  or  to  Socrates,  could  they  see  us !  " 
he  thought.  Was  what  is  called  progress  any- 
thing else  except  increased  insanity  in  human  life  ? 

He  leaned  back  in  his  corner  and  bore  the  dust 
in  his  eyes  and  his  throat  as  best  he  might,  and 


146  The  Waters  of  Edera 

spoke  a  few  kind  words  to  the  boys  nearest  to 
him,  and  felt  as  if  every  bone  in  his  body  was 
broken  as  the  wooden  and  iron  cage  shook  him 
from  side  to  side.  The  train  stopped  finally  in 
that  area  of  bricks  and  mortar  and  vulgarity  and 
confusion  where  once  stood  the  Baths  of  Diocle- 
tian. It  was  late  in  the  night  when  he  heard  the 
name  of  Rome. 

No  scholar  can  hear  that  name  without  emo- 
tion. On  him  it  smote  with  a  keen  personal  pain, 
awakening  innumerable  memories,  calling  from 
their  graves  innumerable  dreams. 

He  had  left  it  a  youth,  filled  with  all  the  aspira- 
tions, the  fire,  the  courage,  the  faith  of  a  lofty 
and  spiritual  temper.  He  returned  to  it  a  man 
aged  before  his  time,  worn,  weary,  crushed,  spir- 
itless, with  no  future  except  death. 

He  descended  from  the  waggon  with  the  crowd 
of  jaded  conscripts  and  mingled  with  that  com- 
mon and  cosmopolitan  crowd  which  now  defiles 
the  city  of  the  Caesars.  The  fatigue  of  his  body 
and  the  cramped  pain  of  his  aching  spine  added  to 
the  moral  and  the  mental  suffering  which  was 
upon  him  as  he  moved  a  stranger  and  alone  along 
the  new,  unfamiliar  streets  where  alone  here  and 
there  some  giant  ruin,  some  stately  arch,  some 
marble  form  of  god  or  prophet,  recalled  to  him 
the  Urbs  that  he  had  known. 

But  he  remembered  the  mission  on  which  he 


The  Waters  of  Edera  147 

came;    and    he    rebuked  his  self-indulgence    in 
mourning  for  his  own  broken  fate. 

"  I  am  a  faithless  servant  and  a  feeble  friend," 
he  thought  in  self-reproach.  "  Let  me  not 
weaken  my  poor  remnant  of  strength  in  egotism 
and  repining.  I  come  hither  for  Adone  and  the 
Edera.  Let  me  think  of  my  errand  only;  not  of 
myself,  nor  even  of  this  desecrated  city." 


IX 

IT  WAS  now  the  season  to  plough  the  reapen 
fields,  and  he  had  always  taken  pleasure  in  his 
straight  furrows — as  straight  as  though  meas- 
ured by  a  rule  on  the  level  lands ;  and  of  the  skill 
with  which  on  the  hilly  ground  Orlando  and  Ri- 
naldo  moved  so  skilfully,  turning  in  so  small  a 
space,  answering  to  every  inflection  of  his  voice, 
taking  such  care  not  to  break  a  twig  of  the  fruit 
trees,  or  bend  a  shoot  of  the  vines,  or  graze  a  stem 
of  the  olives. 

"  Good  hearts,  dear  hearts,  faithful  friends  and 
trusty  servants !  "  he  murmured  to  the  oxen.  He 
leaned  his  bare  arms  on  the  great  fawn-col- 
oured flanks  of  Orlando,  and  his  forehead  on  his 
arms,  which  grew  wet  with  hidden  tears. 

The  cattle  stood  motionless,  breathing  loudly 
through  their  distended  nostrils,  the  yokes  on 
their  shoulders  crinking,  their  hides  twitching 
under  the  torment  of  the  flies.  Nerina,  who  had 
been  washing  linen  in  the  Edera,  approached 
through  the  olives;  she  hesitated  a  few  minutes, 
then  put  the  linen  down  off  her  head  on  to  the 
grass,  gathered  some  plumes  of  featherfew  and 
148 


The  Waters  of  Edera  149 

ferns,  and  brushed  the  flies  off  the  necks  of  the 
oxen.  Adone  started,  looked  up  in  displeasure  at 
being  thus  surprised,  then,  seeing  the  intruder 
was  only  the  little  girl,  he  sat  down  on  the  side  of 
the  plow,  and  made  believe  to  break  his  noon-day 
bread. 

"  You  have  no  wine,"  said  the  child,"shall  I 
run  to  the  house  for  a  flask  ?  " 

"  No,  my  dear,  no.  If  I  am  athirst  there  is 
water — as  yet  there  is  water !  "  he  murmured 
bitterly,  for  the  menace  of  this  impending  horror 
began  to  grow  on  him  with  the  fixity  and  obses- 
sion of  a  mania. 

Nerina  continued  to  fan  the  cattle  and  drive  off 
the  flies  from  their  necks.  She  looked  at  him 
wistfully  from  behind  the  figures  of  the  stately 
animals.  She  was  afraid  of  the  sorrow  which 
was  in  the  air.  No  one  had  told  her  what  the  evil 
was  which  hung  over  the  Terra  Vergine;  and  she 
never  asked  questions.  The  two  elder  women 
never  took  her  into  their  confidence  on  any  sub- 
ject, and  she  had  no  communication  with  the  few 
people  in  Ruscino.  She  had  seen  that  something 
was  wrong,  but  she  could  not  guess  what: 
something  which  made  Madonna  Clelia's  brows 
dark,  and  Gianna's  temper  bad,  and  Adone  himself 
weary  and  ill  at  ease. 

Seeing  him  sitting  there  not  eating,  throwing 
his  bread  to  some  wild  pigeons  which  followed  the 


150  The  Waters  of  Edera 

plough,  she  plucked  up  courage  to  speak;  he  was 
always  kind  to  her,  though  he  noticed  her  little. 

"  What  is  it  that  ails  you  all  ?  "  she  asked. 
"  Tell  me,  Adone,  I  am  not  a  foolish  thing  to 
babble." 

He  did  not  answer.  What  use  were  words: 
It  was  deeds  which  were  wanted. 

"  Adone,  tell  me,"  she  said  entreatingly. 
"  What  is  this  that  seems  to  lie  like  a  stone  on  you 
all?  Tell  me  why  Don  Silverio  has  gone  away. 
I  will  never  tell  again." 

There  was  a  pathetic  entreaty  in  the  words 
which  touched  and  roused  him;  there  was  in  it 
the  sympathy  which  would  not  criticise  or  doubt, 
and  which  is  to  the  sore  heart  as  balm  and  soothes 
it  by  its  very  lack  of  reason. 

He  told  her;  told  her  the  little  that  he  knew, 
the  much  that  he  feared ;  he  spent  all  the  force  of 
his  emotion  in  the  narrative. 

The  child  leaned  against  the  great  form  of  the 
ox,  and  listened,  not  interrupting  by  a  word  or 
cry. 

She  did  not  rebuke  him  as  Don  Silverio  had 
done,  or  reproach  him  as  did  his  mother ;  she  only 
listened  with  a  world  of  comprehension  in  her 
eyes  more  eloquent  than  speech,  not  attempting 
to  arrest  the  fury  of  imprecation  or  the  prophecies 
of  vengeance  which  poured  from  his  lips.  Hers 
was  that  undoubting,  undivided,  implicit  faith 
which  is  so  dear  to  the  wounded  pride  and  im- 


The  Waters  of  Edera  151 

potent  strength  of  a  man  in  trouble  who  is  con- 
scious that  what  he  longs  to  do  would  not  be  ap- 
proved by  law  or  sanctioned  by  religion.  That 
faith  spoke  in  her  eyes,  in  her  absorbed  attention, 
in  the  few  breathless  sentences  which  escaped  her; 
there  was  also  on  her  youthful  face  a  set,  stern 
anger  akin  to  his  own. 

"  Could  we  not  slay  these  men?  "  she  said  in  a 
low,  firm  voice;  she  came  of  a  mountain  race 
by  whom  life  was  esteemed  little  and  revenge 
honour. 

"  We  must  not  even  say  such  a  thing,"  said 
Adone  bitterly,  in  whose  ears  the  rebuke  of  Don 
Silverio  still  rang.  "  In  these  days  everything  is 
denied  us,  even  speech.  If  we  take  our  rights  we 
are  caged  in  their  prisons." 

"  But  what  will  you  do,  then?  " 

"  For  the  moment  I  wait  to  learn  more.  These 
things  are  done  in  the  dark,  or  at  least  in  no  light 
that  we  can  see.  To  kill  these  men  as  you  wish, 
little  one,  would  do  nothing.  Others  of  their  kind 
would  fill  their  places.  The  seekers  of  gold  are 
like  ants.  Slay  thousands,  tens  of  thousands 
come  on ;  if  once  the  scent  of  gain  be  on  the  wind 
it  brings  men  in  crowds  from  all  parts  as  the 
smell  of  carrion  brings  meat-flies.  If  they  think 
of  seizing  the  Edera  it  is  because  men  of  business 
will  turn  it  into  gold.  The  Edera  gives  us  our 
grain,  our  fruits,  our  health,  our  life,  but  if  it  will 
give  money  to  the  foreigner  the  foreigner  will 


152  The  Waters  of  Edera 

take  it  as  he  would  take  the  stars  and  coin  them 
if  he  could.  The  brigand  of  the  hills  is  caged  or 
shot;  the  brigand  of  the  banks  is  allowed  to  fatten 
and  die  in  the  odour  of  success.  There  are  two 
measures." 

Nerina  failed  to  understand,  but  her  mind  was 
busy  with  what  seemed  to  her  this  monstrous  in- 
justice. 

"  But  why  do  they  let  them  do  it  ?  They  take 
and  chain  the  men  who  rob  a  traveller  or  a  house." 

Adone  cast  his  last  atom  of  bread  to  the  birds. 

"  There  are  two  measures,"  he  answered. 
"  Kill  one,  you  go  to  the  galleys  for  life.  Kill 
half  a  million,  you  are  a  hero  in  history,  and  you 
get  in  your  own  generation  titles,  and  money,  and 
applause." 

"  Baruffo  was  a  good  man  and  my  father's 
friend,"  Nerina  said,  following  her  own 
thoughts.  "  Baruffo  was  in  the  oak  woods  al- 
ways, high  above  us,  but  he  often  brought  us  wine 
and  game  at  night,  and  sometimes  money  too. 
Baruffo  was  a  good  man.  He  was  so  kind. 
Twice  my  father  aided  him  to  escape.  But  one 
night  they  seized  him ;  there  was  a  whole  troop  of 
carabineers  against  him,  they  took  him  in  a  trap, 
they  could  never  have  got  him  else,  and  I  saw  him 
brought  down  the  mountain  road  and  I  ran  and 
kissed  him  before  they  could  stop  me;  and  he 
never  came  back — they  kept  him." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  153 

"  No  doubt  they  kept  him,"  said  Adone  bit- 
terely.  "  Baruffo  was  a  peasant  outlawed;  if  he 
had  been  a  banker,  or  a  minister,  or  a  railway 
contractor,  he  might  have  gone  on  thieving  all 
his  life,  and  met  only  praise.  They  keep  poor 
Baruffo  safe  in  their  accursed  prisons,  but  they 
will  take  care  never  to  keep,  or  take  even  for  a 
day,  law-breakers  whose  sins  are  far  blacker  than 
his,  and  whose  victims  are  multitudes." 

"  If  Baruffo  were  here  he  would  help  you,"  said 
Nerina.  "  He  was  such  a  fine  strong  man  and 
had  no  fear." 

Adone  rose  and  put  his  hands  on  the  handles  of 
the  plough. 

"  Take  up  your  linen,  little  one,"  he  said  to  the 
girl,  "  and  go  home,  or  my  mother  will  be  angry 
with  you  for  wasting  time." 

Nerina  came  close  to  him  and  her  brown  dog- 
like  eyes  looked  up  like  a  dog's  into  his  face. 

"  Tell  me  what  you  do,  Adone,"  she  said  be- 
seechingly, "  I  will  tell  no  one.  I  was  very  little 
when  Baruffo  came  and  went  to  and  fro  in  our 
hut;  but  I  had  sense;  I  never  spoke.  Only  when 
the  guards  had  him  I  kissed  him  because  then  it 
did  not  matter  what  they  knew;  there  was  no 
hope." 

"  Yes,  I  will  tell  you,"  said  Adone.  "  Maybe 
I  shall  end  like  Baruffo." 

Then  he  called  on  Orlando  and  Rinaldo  by 


154  The  Waters  of  Edera 

their  names,  and  they  lowered  their  heads  and 
strained  at  their  collars,  and  with  a  mighty 
wrench  of  their  loins  and  shoulders  they  forced 
the  share  through  the  heavy  earth. 

Nerina  stood  still  and  looked  after  him  as  he 
passed  along  under  the  vine-hung  trees. 

"  Baruffo  may  have  done  some  wrong,"  she 
thought,  "  but  Adone,  he  has  done  none,  he  is  as 
good  as  if  he  were  a  saint  of  God,  and  if  he  should 
be  obliged  to  do  evil  it  will  be  no  fault  of  his,  but 
because  other  men  are  wicked." 

Then  she  put  the  load  of  linen  on  her  head,  and 
went  along  the  grassy  path  homeward,  and  she 
saw  the  rosy  gladioli  and  the  golden  tansy  by 
which  she  passed  through  tears.  Yet  she  was 
glad  because  Adone  had  trusted  her;  and  be- 
cause she  now  knew  as  much  as  the  elder  women 
in  his  house  who  had  put  no  confidence  in  her. 


X 

"  I  SHALL  not  write,"  Don  Silverio  had  said  to 
Adone.  "  As  soon  as  I  know  anything  for  cer- 
tain I  shall  return.  Of  that  you  may  be  sure." 

For  he  knew  that  letters  took  a  week  or  more 
to  find  their  slow  way  to  Ruscino,  and  he  had 
hoped  to  return  in  less  than  that  time ;  having  no 
experience  of  "  what  hell  it  is  in  waiting  to  abide," 
and  of  the  endless  doublings  and  goings  to  earth 
of  that  fox-like  thing,  a  modern  speculation;  he 
innocently  believed  that  he  would  only  have  to 
ask  a  question  to  have  it  answered. 

Day  after  day  Adone  mounted  to  the  bell-tower 
roof  and  gazed  over  the  country  in  vain.  Day 
after  day  the  little  dog  escaped  from  the  custody 
of  Nerina,  trotted  over  the  bridge,  pattered  up 
the  street,  and  ran  whining  into  his  master's 
study.  Every  night  the  people  of  Ruscino  hung 
up  a  lantern  on  a  loophole  of  the  belfry,  and 
another  on  the  parapet  of  the  bridge,  that 
their  pastor  might  not  miss  his  way  if  he  were 
coming  on  foot  beside  the  river ;  and  every  night 
Adone  himself  watched  on  the  river  bank  or  by 
the  town  wall,  sleepless,  longing  for,  yet  dreading 
that  which  he  should  hear.  But  more  than  a 

'55 


156  The  Waters  of  Edera 

week  passed,  and  the  priest  did  not  return.  The 
anxiety  of  Adone  consumed  him  like  fire.  He 
strove  to  dull  his  anxiety  by  incessant  work,  but 
it  was  too  acute  to  be  soothed  by  physical  fatigue. 
He  counted  the  days  and  the  hours,  and  he  could 
not  sleep.  The  women  watched  him  in  fear  and 
silence;  they  dared  ask  nothing,  lest  they  should 
wound  him.  Only  Nerina  whispered  to  him  once 
or  twice  in  the  fields,  "  Where  is  he  gone  ?  When 
will  he  come  back?  " 

"  God  knows !  "  he  answered.  Every  evening 
that  he  saw  the  sun  set  beyond  the  purple  line  of 
the  mountains  which  were  heaped  in  their  masses 
of  marble  and  snow  between  him  and  the 
Patrimonium  Petrus,  he  felt  as  if  he  could  never 
bear  another  night.  He  could  hear  the  clear, 
fresh  sound  of  the  running  river,  and  it  seemed 
to  him  like  the  voice  of  some  friend  crying  aloud 
to  him  in  peril.  Whilst  these  summer  days  and 
nights  sped  away  what  was  being  done  to  save 
it?  He  felt  like  a  coward  who  stands  by  and 
sees  a  comrade  murdered.  In  his  solitude  and  ap- 
prehension he  began  to  lose  all  self-control ;  he 
imagined  impossible  things;  he  began  to  see  in 
his  waking  dreams,  as  in  a  nightmare,  the  dead 
body  of  Don  Silverio  lying  with  a  knife  in  its 
breast  in  some  cut-throat  alley  of  Rome.  For 
two  weeks  passed  and  there  was  no  sign  of  his  re- 
turn and  no  message  from  him. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  157 

The  poor  people  of  Ruscino  also  were 
troubled.  Their  vicar  had  never  left  them  before. 
They  did  not  love  him ;  he  was  too  unlike  them ; 
but  they  honoured  him,  they  believed  in  him;  he 
was  always  there  in  their  sickness  and  sorrow; 
they  leaned  on  his  greater  strength  in  all  their 
penury  and  need ;  and  he  was  poor  like  them,  and 
stripped  himself  still  barer  for  their  sakes. 

Through  the  young  friar  who  had  replaced  him 
they  had  heard  something  of  the  calamity  which 
threatened  to  befall  them  through  the  Edera.  It 
was  all  dark  to  them;  they  could  understand 
nothing.  Why  others  should  want  their  river  and 
why  they  should  lose  it,  or  in  what  manner  a 
stream  could  be  turned  from  its  natural  course — 
all  these  things  were  to  them  incomprehensible. 
In  the  beginning  of  the  world  it  had  been  set  run- 
ning there.  Who  would  be  impious  enough  to 
meddle  with  it? 

Whoever  tried  to  do  so  would  be  smitten  with 
the  vengeance  of  Heaven.  Of  that  they  were 
sure.  Nevertheless  to  hear  the  mention  of  such  a 
thing  tormented  them;  and  when  they  opened 
their  doors  at  dawn  they  looked  out  in  terror  lest 
the  water  should  have  been  taken  away  in  the 
night. 

Their  stupidity  irritated  Adone  so  greatly  that 
he  ceased  altogether  to  speak  to  them  of  the  im- 
pending calamity.  "  They  are  stocks  and  stones. 


158  The  Waters  of  Edera 

They  have  not  the  sense  of  sheep  nor  the  courage 
of  goats,"  he  said,  with  the  old  scorn  which  his 
forefathers  had  felt  for  their  rustic  vassals  stir- 
ring in  him. 

"  I  believe  that  they  would  dig  sand  and  carry 
wood  for  the  engineers  and  the  craftsmen  who 
would  build  the  dykes !  "  he  said  to  his  mother. 

Clelia  Alba  sighed.  "  My  son,  hunger  is  a  hard 
master;  it  makes  the  soul  faint,  the  heart  hard, 
the  belly  ravenous.  We  have  never  known  it.  We 
cannot  judge  those  who  know  nothing  else." 

"  Even  hunger  need  not  make  one  vile,"  he  an- 
swered. 

But  he  did  not  disclose  all  his  thoughts  to  his 
mother. 

He  was  so  intolerant  of  these  poor  people  of 
Ruscino  because  he  foresaw  the  hopelessness  of 
forging  their  weak  tempers  into  the  metal  neces- 
sary for  resistance.  As  well  might  he  hope  to 
change  a  swerd-rush  of  the  river  into  a  steel  sabre 
for  combat.  Masaniello,  Rienzi,  Garibaldi,  had 
roused  the  peasantry  and  led  them  against  their 
foes;  but  the  people  they  dealt  with  must,  he 
thought,  have  been  made  of  different  stuff  than 
these  timorous  villagers,  who  could  not  even  be 
made  to  comprehend  the  magnitude  of  the  wrong 
which  was  plotted  against  them. 

"  Tell  them,"  he  said  to  old  Trizio ;  "  tell  them 
their  wells  will  run  dry ;  their  fish  will  rot  on  the 


The  Waters  of  Edera  159 

dry  bed  of  what  was  once  the  river;  their  canes, 
their  reeds  and  rushes,  their  osiers,  will  all  fail 
them;  when  they  shall  go  out  into  their  fields 
nothing  which  they  sow  or  plant  will  grow  be- 
cause the  land  will  be  cracked  and  parched ;  there 
will  be  no  longer  the  runlets  and  rivulets  to  water 
the  soil ;  birds  will  die  of  thirst,  and  thousands  of 
little  river  creatures  will  be  putrid  carcasses  in  the 
sun;  for  the  Edera,  which  is  life  and  joy  and 
health  to  this  part  of  the  country,  will  be  carried 
far  away,  imprisoned  in  brick  walls,  drawn  under 
ground,  forced  to  labour  like  a  slave,  put  to  vile 
uses,  soiled  and  degraded.  Cannot  you  tell  them 
this,  and  make  them  see?  " 

The  old  man  shook  his  white  head.  "They 
would  never  believe.  It  is  too  hard  for  them. 
Where  the  river  runs,  there  it  will  always  be.  So 
they  think." 

"  They  are  dolts,  they  are  mules,  they  are 
swine !  "  said  Adone.  "  Nay,  may  the  poor  beasts 
forgive  me!  The  beasts  cannot  help  themselves, 
but  men  can  if  they  choose." 

"  Humph !  "  said  Trizio  doubtfully.  "  My  lad, 
you  have  not  seen  men  shot  down  by  the  hundred. 
I  have — long  ago,  long  ago." 

"  There  is  no  chance  of  their  being  shot,"  said 
Adone,  with  contempt,  almost  with  regret.  "  All 
that  is  wanted  of  them  are  common  sense,  union, 
protestation,  comprehension  of  their  rights." 


160  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  Aye,  you  all  begin  with  that,"  said  the  old 
Garibaldino.  "  But,  my  lad,  you  do  not  end  there, 
for  it  is  just  those  things  which  are  your  right 
which  those  above  you  will  never  hear  of;  and 
then  up  come  the  cannon  thundering,  and  when 
the  smoke  clears  away  there  are  your  dead — and 
that  is  all  you  get." 

The  voice  of  the  old  soldier  was  thin  and 
cracked  and  feeble,  but  it  had  a  sound  in  it  which 
chilled  the  hot  blood  of  his  hearer. 

This  was  no  revolutionary  question,  no  social- 
istic theory,  no  new  or  alarming  demand;  it  was 
only  a  claim  old  as  the  hills,  only  a  resolve  to  keep 
what  the  formation  of  the  earth  had  given  to  this 
province. 

As  well  blame  a  father  for  claiming  his  own 
child  as  blame  him  and  his  neighbours  for  claim- 
ing their  own  river. 

They  were  tranquil  and  docile  people,  poor  and 
patient,  paying  what  they  were  told  to  pay,  letting 
the  fiscal  wolf  gnaw  and  glut  as  it  chose  unop- 
posed, not  loving  their  rulers  indeed,  but  never 
moving  or  speaking  against  them,  accepting  the 
snarl,  the  worry,  the  theft,  the  greed,  the  malice  of 
the  State  without  questioning. 

Were  they  to  stand  by  and  see  their  river 
ruined,  and  do  nothing,  as  the  helpless  fishermen 
of  Fuscina  have  accepted  the  ruin  of  their  lake? 

To  all  young  men  of  courage  and  sensibility 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 6 1 

and  enthusiasm  the  vindication  of  a  clear  right 
seems  an  act  so  simple  that  it  is  only  through  long 
and  painful  experience  that  they  realise  that  there 
is  nothing  under  the  sun  which  is  so  hard  to  com- 
pass, or  which  is  met  by  such  strong  antagonism. 
To  Adone,  whose  nature  was  unspoilt  by  mod- 
ern influences,  and  whose  world  was  comprised  in 
the  fields  and  moors  around  Ruscino,  it  seemed 
incredible  that  such  a  title  as  that  of  his  native 
soil  to  the  water  of  Edera  could  be  made  clear  to 
those  in  power  without  instant  ratification  of  it. 

"  Whether  you  do  aught  or  naught  it  comes  to 
the  same  thing,"  said  the  old  Garibaldino  who  was 
wiser.  "  We  did  much;  we  spent  our  blood  like 
water,  and  what  good  has  it  been  ?  For  one  devil 
we  drove  out  before  our  muskets,  a  thousand 
worse  devils  have  entered  since." 

"  It  is  different,"  said  Adone,  impatient.  "  All 
we  have  to  do  is  to  keep  out  the  stranger.  You 
had  to  drive  him  out.  No  politics  or  doctrines 
come  into  our  cause ;  all  we  mean,  all  we  want,  is 
to  be  left  alone,  to  remain  as  we  are.  That  is  all. 
It  is  simple  and  just." 

"  Aye,  it  is  simple;  aye,  it  is  just,"  said  the  old 
man;  but  he  sucked  his  pipe-stem  grimly ;  he  had 
never  seen  these  arguments  prosper;  and  in  his 
own  youth  he  had  cherished  such  mistakes,  him- 
self, to  his  own  hindrance. 

Had  he  not  sung  in  those  glorious  days  of  hope 
and  faith, 


1 62  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  Fratelli  d'ltalia! 
L'ltalia  s'6  desta! " 

In  the  night  which  followed  on  the  fourteenth 
day  of  the  Vicar's  absence,  Adone,  unable  to  either 
rest  or  to  labour,  went  into  the  cattle  stalls  and  fed 
and  watered  all  the  animals,  then  he  crossed  the 
river  and  went  along  its  north  bank  by  the  same 
path  which  he  had  followed  with  DonSilverio  two 
weeks  earlier.  He  had  passed  to  and  fro  that  path 
often  since  his  friend's  departure,  for  by  it  the 
priest  must  return ;  there  was  no  other  way  to  and 
from  the  west. 

Rain  had  fallen  in  the  night  and  the  river  was 
buoyant,  and  the  grass  sparkled,  the  mountains 
were  of  sapphire  blue,  and  above  the  shallows 
clouds  of  flies  and  gnats  were  fluttering,  water- 
lilies  were  blossoming  where  the  water  was  still, 
and  in  the  marshes  buffaloes  pushed  their  dark 
forms  amongst  the  nymphcea  and  the  nuphur. 

He  had  no  longer  any  eyes  to  see  these  things ; 
he  only  strained  his  sight  to  catch  the  first  glimpse 
of  a  tired  traveller.  The  landscape  here  was  level 
for  many  miles  of  moor  and  pasture  and  a 
human  form  approaching  could  be  seen  from  a 
great  distance.  It  was  such  a  dawn  as  he  had 
used  to  love  beyond  all  other  blessings  of  nature ; 
but  now  the  buffaloes  in  the  pools  and  swamps 
were  not  more  blind  to  its  charm  than  he. 

The  sun  rose  behind  him  out  of  the  unseen 
Adrian  waves,  and  a  rosy  light  spread  itself  over 


The  Waters  of  Edera  163 

the  earth;  and  at  that  moment  he  saw  afar  off  a 
dark  form  moving  slowly.  With  a  loud  cry  he 
sprang  forward  and  ran  with  the  fleetness  of  a  colt 
the  hundred  yards  which  were  between  him  and 
that  familiar  figure. 

"  My  son !  my  dear  son ! "  cried  Don  Silverio, 
as  Adone  reached  him  and  fell  on  his  knees  on 
the  scorched  turf. 

"  At  last !  "  he  murmured,  choked  with  joy  and 
fear.  "  Oh,  where  have  you  been  ?  We  are  half 
dead,  your  people  and  I.  What  tidings  do  you 
bring?  What  comfort?" 

"  Rise  up,  and  remember  that  you  are  a  man," 
said  Don  Silverio;  and  the  youth,  gazing  upwards 
keenly  into  his  face,  suddenly  lost  all  hope,  seeing 
no  hope  on  that  weary  countenance. 

"  You  cannot  save  us  ? "  he  cried,  with  a 
scream  like  a  wounded  hare's. 

"  I  cannot,  my  dear  son,"  answered  Don  Sil- 
verio. 

Adone  dropped  backward  as  if  a  bullet  had 
struck  him;  his  head  smote  the  dry  ground;  he 
had  lost  consciousness,  his  face  was  livid. 

Don  Silverio  raised  him  and  dragged  him  into 
the  shade  of  a  bay-tree  and  dashed  water  on  him 
from  the  river.  In  a  few  minutes  he  was  roused 
and  again  conscious,  but  on  his  features  there  was 
a  dazed,  stunned  look. 

"  You  cannot  save  us?  "  he  repeated. 


164  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  Neither  you  nor  I  have  millions,"  said  Don 
Silverio  with  bitterness.  "  It  is  with  no  other 
weapon  that  men  can  fight  successfully  now." 

Adone  had  risen  to  his  feet;  he  was  pale  as  a 
corpse,  only  the  blood  was  set  in  his  forehead. 

"Is  it  true,  then?"  he  muttered.  "Do  they 
mean  to  come  here  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"Who  are  they?    Jews?" 

"Jews  and  Gentiles.  There  is  no  difference 
between  those  races  now;  they  have  a  common 
Credo — greed;  they  adore  one  Jehovah — gold. 
My  boy,  I  am  very  tired,  and  you  are  ill.  Let  us 
get  home  as  quickly  as  we  can." 

"  I  am  not  ill.  It  was  nothing.  It  has  passed. 
Tell  me  the  worst." 

"  The  worst,  in  a  word,  is  that  a  foreign  com- 
pany, already  established  for  several  years  in  this 
country,  has  obtained  faculty  to  turn  this  water 
out  of  its  course  and  use  it  as  the  motive  power  of 
an  electric  railway  and  of  an  acetylene  manufac- 
tory." 

"  And  this  cannot  Be  undone?  " 

"  I  fear  not ;  they  are  rich  and  powerful.  What 
are  we  ?  Let  me  get  home.  There  you  shall  hear 
all,  and  judge." 

Adone  asked  and  said  no  more.  He  turned  and 
went  backward.  His  steps  were  slow  and  un- 
steady, his  head  was  hung  down.  The  dry,  hot 


The  Waters  of  Edera  165 

air  was  like  fire  around  them;  the  sun,  though 
still  low,  darted  fierce  rays  upon  them  like  spears 
thrown  with  a  sure  aim.  He  had  not  known  how 
much  and  how  strongly  he  had  hoped  until  now 
that  he  heard  that  there  was  no  hope  left. 

Don  Silverio,  though  he  did  not  speak  of  him- 
self, was  faint  with  fatigue;  the  return  journey 
had  tried  him  more  cruelly  than  the  first,  since 
on  his  way  to  Rome  he  had  been  sustained  by  the 
hope  to  find  the  project  abandoned,  or  at  the  least 
uncertain.  He  had  spent  all  his  scanty  earnings, 
so  hardly  and  tediously  collected  through  a  score 
of  years,  and  he  had  brought  back  to  his  poor 
people  and  to  the  youth  he  loved,  nothing  except 
the  confirmation  of  their  worst  fears.  It  was 
with  difficulty  that  he  could  drag  his  aching  feet 
over  the  burnt  grass  back  to  his  parish. 

When  they  reached  the  bridge  they  were  on 
the  village  side  of  the  stream.  Adone,  with  an 
effort,  raised  himself  from  the  trance  into  which 
he  had  fallen. 

"  Forgive  me,  sir ;  you  are  overtired,  you  must 
rest.  I  will  come  to  you  later." 

"  No,  no,"  said  Don  Silverio  quickly,  for  he 
thought  the  youth  in  no  state  to  be  alone.  "  I 
will  wash  and  take  a  cup  of  coffee,  then  I  will  tell 
you  all.  Wait  in  my  book-room." 

They  went  together  to  his  house.  There  was 
no  one  in  the  street  or  on  the  walls  except  some 


1 66  The  Waters  of  Edera 

children  gathering  dandelion  leaves  in  the  ditch. 
They  reached  the  priest's  house  unobserved;  only 
the  little  dog,  who  was  making  his  diurnal  search 
there,  rushed  out  of  the  entrance  in  a  frenzy  of 
rapture. 

"  Poor  little  man !  Dear  Signorino !  "  mur- 
mured Don  Silverio,  and  he  took  the  little  crea- 
ture in  his  arms.  Then  he  opened  the  door  of  his 
study.  "  Wait  there,"  he  said  to  Adone.  "  I  will 
soon  come  downstairs.  I  will  only  wash  off  the 
dust  of  this  journey." 

Adone  obeyed. 

The  room  was  dusky,  cool,  silent;  he  sat  down 
in  it  and  waited;  he  could  hear  the  loud,  uneven 
beating  of  his  own  heart  in  the  stillness. 

As  he  felt  now,  so  he  thought  must  feel  men 
who  have  heard  their  own  death-sentence,  and 
are  thrust  alone  into  a  cell. 

If  Don  Silverio  could  do  nothing,  to  whom 
could  he  turn  ? 

Could  he  induce  the  people  to  rise?  It  would 
be  their  ruin  as  well  as  his,  this  rape  of  the  river. 
Would  they  bear  it  as  they  bore  taxation,  neglect, 
conscription,  hunger? 

It  was  not  half  an  hour,  although  it  seemed  to 
him  half  a  day,  which  passed  before  Don  Silverio 
came  down  the  stone  stair,  his  little  dog  running 
and  leaping  about  him.  He  seated  himself  before 
Adone,  by  the  shuttered  window  through  which, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 67 

by  chinks  and  holes  in  the  wood,  there  came  rays 
of  light  and  tendrils  of  vine. 

Then  detail  by  detail,  with  lucidity  and  brevity, 
he  narrated  all  he  had  heard  and  done  in  Rome, 
and  which  it  was  exceeding  hard  to  bring  home  to 
the  comprehension  of  a  mind  wholly  ignorant  of 
such  things. 

"  When  I  reached  Rome,"  he  explained,  "  I 
was  for  some  days  in  despair.  The  deputy  of 
San  Beda  was  not  at  the  Chamber.  He  was  in 
Sicily.  Another  deputy,  a  friend  of  the  Prior  at 
San  Beda,  to  whom  I  had  a  letter,  was  very  ill 
with  typhoid  fever.  I  knew  not  where  to  turn.  I 
could  not  knock  at  the  doors  of  strangers  without 
credentials.  Then  I  remembered  that  one  with 
whom  I  had  been  friends,  great  friends,  when  we 
were  both  seminarists,  had  become  a  great  man 
at  the  Vaticano.  It  was  scarcely  possible  that  he, 
in  his  great  elevation,  would  recollect  one  unseen 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  But  I  took  courage 
and  sent  in  my  name.  Imagine  my  surprise  and 
emotion  when  I  was  admitted  at  once  to  his  pres- 
ence, and  was  received  by  him  with  the  uttermost 
kindness.  He  assisted  me  in  every  way.  He 
could  not  of  course  move  ostensibly  in  a  matter 
of  the  government,  himself,  but  he  gave  me  letters 
to  those  who  could  obtain  me  the  information  and 
the  interviews  which  I  desired.  He  was  good- 
ness itself,  and  through  him  I  was.  even  received 


1 68  The  Waters  of  Edera 

by  his  Holiness.     But  from  all  those  political  and 
financial  people  whom  I  saw  I  learned  but  the 
same  thing.     The  matter  is  far  advanced,  is  be- 
yond any  alteration.     The  company  is  formed. 
The   concurrence   of   parliament   is   not   to   be, 
but  has  long  been,  given.     The  ministry  favours 
the  project.     They  all  repeated  to  me  the  same 
formula :  public  works  are  to  the  public  interest. 
They   babbled   commonplaces.     They   spoke    of 
great  advantages  to  the  province.     I  pleaded  as 
forcibly  as  I  could  in  the  interests  of  this  valley, 
and  I  opposed  fact  to  formula.     But  my  facts 
were  not  those  which  they  wanted ;  and  they  told 
me,  politely  but  unmistakably,  that  a  churchman 
should  not  seek  to  interfere  with  civil  matters. 
The  promoters  are  masters  of  the  position.     They 
are  all  of  accord :  the  foreign  bankers,  the  Italian 
bankers;    the  foreign  engineers,  the  Italian  en- 
gineers;   the  Technical  office,  the  President  of 
Council,  the  dicastro  of  Hygiene,  of  Agriculture, 
of  Public  Works,  all  of  them.     Our  poor  little 
valley  seems  to  them  a  desirable  prey;  they  have 
seized  it,  they  will  keep  it.     They  were  all  cour- 
teous enough.     They  are  polite  and  even  unwill- 
ing to  cause  what  they  call  unnecessary  friction, 
But  they  will  not  give  an  inch.     Their  talons  are 
in  our  flesh  as  an  eagle's  in  a  lamb's.     One  thinks 
fondly  that  what  a  man  possesses  is  his  own,  be  it 
land,  house,  stream — what  not !    But  we  mistake. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  169 

There  is  a  thing  stronger,  higher,  more  powerful 
than  any  poor  title  of  property  acquired  by  herit- 
age, by  purchase,  or  by  labour.  It  is  what  they 
call  expropriation.  You  think  the  Edera  cannot 
be  touched:  it  can  be  expropriated.  You  think 
the  Terra  Vergine  cannot  be  touched:  it  can  be 
expropriated.  Against  expropriation  no  rights 
can  stand.  It  is  the  concentration  and  crystallisa- 
tion of  theft  legitimatised  by  Government — that  is 
by  Force.  A  vagrant  may  not  take  a  sheaf  of 
your  wheat,  a  fowl  from  your  hen-house :  if  he  do 
so,  the  law  protects  you  and  punishes  him.  A 
syndicate  of  rich  men,  of  powerful  men,  may  take 
the  whole  of  your  land,  and  the  State  will  compel 
you  to  accept  any  arbitrary  price  which  it  may 
choose  to  put  upon  your  loss.  According  as  you 
are  rich  or  poor  yourself,  so  great  or  so  small  will 
be  the  amount  awarded  to  you.  All  the  sub- 
prefects,  all  the  syndics,  all  the  officials  in  this 
province,  will  be  richly  rewarded;  the  people  de- 
frauded of  the  soil  will  get  what  may  be  given 
them  by  an  enforced  valuation.  I  have  conversed 
with  all  kinds  and  conditions  of  men;  and  I  have 
heard  only  one  statement  in  the  mouths  of  all ;  the 
matter  is  beyond  all  alteration.  There  is  money 
in  it ;  the  men  whose  trade  is  money  will  not  let  it 
go.  My  son,  my  dearest  son,  be  calm,  be  prudent. 
Violence  can  only  injure  yourself,  and  it  can  save 
nothing." 


1 70  The  Waters  of  Edera 

He  had  for  the  moment  spoken  as  he  had  been 
speaking  for  the  last  two  weeks  to  men  of  educa- 
tion and  of  the  world. 

He  was  recalled  to  the  fact  that  his  present 
auditor  did  not  reason,  did  not  comprehend,  only 
felt,  and  was  drunk  with  his  own  force  of  feeling. 
The  look  on  Adone's  face  appalled  him. 

The  youth  seemed  almost  to  have  no  intel- 
ligence left,  almost  as  if  all  which  had  been 
said  to  him  had  reached  neither  his  ear  nor 
his  brain. 

Don  Silverio  had  been  in  the  world  of  men,  and 
unconsciously  he  had  adopted  their  phraseology 
and  their  manner.  To  Adone,  who  had  expected 
some  miracle,  some  rescue  almost  archangelic, 
some  promise  of  immediate  and  divine  interposi- 
tion, these  calm  and  rational  statements  conveyed 
scarcely  any  sense,  so  terrible  was  the  destruction 
of  his  hopes.  All  the  trust  and  candour  and 
sweetness  of  his  nature  turned  to  gall. 

He  listened,  a  sullen,  savage  darkness  stealing 
over  his  countenance. 

"And  our  rights?  Theirs? — mine?"  he  said 
as  Don  Silverio  paused. 

"  For  all  rights  taken  away  they  will  give  legal 
compensation." 

"  You  dare  repeat  that,  sir?  " 

Don  Silverio  controlled  his  indignation  with 
difficulty. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  171 

"  I  dare  do  whatever  I  deem  right  to  do.  You 
should  know  that  by  this  time." 

"You  think  this  right?" 

"  I  think  it  right  to  repeat  exactly  what  has 
been  said  to  me.  I  do  not  of  necessity  approve 
because  I  repeat." 

"  You  know  no  compensation  is  possible !  " 

"  Morally,  none.  I  speak  of  but  what  law  al- 
lows." 

"  The  law  of  pirates,  of  cut-throats !  " 

"  The  law  of  the  State,  alas !  " 

Adone  laughed.  His  hearer  had  heard  such 
laughter  as  that  in  madhouses. 

"  The  State  kills  a  soldier,  and  gives  his  fam- 
ily a  hundred  francs!  That  is  the  compensation 
of  the  State.  If  they  emptied  their  treasuries, 
could  they  give  the  soldier  back  his  life?  If  they 
emptied  their  treasuries,  could  they  give  us  back 
what  they  will  take  from  us  ?  " 

"  My  dear  son,  do  not  doubt  my  sympathy.  All 
my  heart  is  with  you.  But  what  can  be  done? 
Can  a  poor  village,  a  poor  commune,  struggle 
with  any  chance  of  success  against  a  rich  com- 
pany and  a  government?  Can  a  stalk  of  wheat 
resist  the  sickle?  Can  an  ear  of  wheat  resist  the 
threshing-flail  ?  I  have  told  you  the  story  of  Don 
Quixote  della  Mancha.  Would  you  fight  the 
empty  air  like  him?" 

Adone  did  not  reply. 


172  The  Waters  of  Edera 

His  beautiful  face  grew  moody,  dark,  fierce ;  in 
his  eyes  flamed  passions  which  had  no  voice  upon 
his  lips;  his  white  teeth  ground  against  one 
another. 

"  Believe  me,  Adone,"  said  his  friend,  "  we  are 
in  evil  days  when  men  babble  of  liberty,  and  are 
so  intent  on  the  mere  empty  sound  of  their  lips 
that  they  perceive  not  the  fetters  on  their  wrists 
and  feet.  There  was  never  any  time  when  there 
was  so  little  freedom  and  so  little  justice  as  in 
ours.  Two  gigantic  dominions  now  rule  the  hu- 
man race;  they  are  the  armies  and  the  money- 
makers. Science  serves  them  turn  by  turn,  and 
receives  from  each  its  wage.  The  historian 
Mommsen  has  written  that  we  are  probably  in- 
ferior both  in  intelligence  and  in  humanity,  in 
prosperity  and  in  civilization,  at  the  close  of  this 
century  to  what  the  human  race  was  under 
Severus  Antoninus;  and  it  is  true." 

Adone  did  not  seem  to  hear.  What  were  these 
abstract  reasonings  to  him  ?  All  he  cared  for  were 
his  river  and  his  fields. 

"  I  sought  for  an  old  friend  of  mine  in  Rome," 
said  Don  Silverio,  endeavouring  to  gain  his  atten- 
tion and  divert  his  thoughts, "one  Pamfilio  Scoria. 
He  was  a  learned  scholar;  he  had  possessed  a  small 
competence  and  a  house  of  his  own,  small  too,  but 
of  admirable  architecture,  a  Quattro-centisto 
house.  I  could  not  find  this  house  in  Rome.  After 


The  Waters  of  Edera  173 

long  search  I  learned  that  it  had  been  pulled 
down  to  make  a  new  street.  Pamfilio  Scoria  had 
in  vain  tried  to  preserve  his  rights.  The  city  had 
turned  him  out  and  taken  his  property,  paying 
what  it  chose.  His  grief  was  so  great  to  see  it 
destroyed,  and  to  be  turned  adrift  with  his  book 
and  manuscripts,  that  he  fell  ill  and  died  not  long 
afterwards.  On  the  site  of  the  house  there  is  a 
drinking-place  kept  by  Germans;  a  street  railway 
runs  before  it.  This  kind  of  theft,  of  pillage, 
takes  place  every  week.  It  is  masked  as  public 
utility.  We  are  not  alone  sufferers  from  such  a 
crime." 

Adone  was  still  silent. 

His  thoughts  were  not  such  as  he  could  utter 
aloud  in  the  priest's  presence ;  and  he  heard  noth- 
ing that  was  said;  he  heard  only  little  Nerina's 
voice  saying:  "Could  we  not  kill  these  men?" 
That  flutelike  whisper  seemed  to  him  to  sigh  with 
the  very  voice  of  the  river  itself. 

Don  Silverio  rose,  his  patience,  great  as  it  was, 
exhausted. 

"  My  son,  as  you  do  not  give  ear  to  me,  it  is 
useless  for  me  to  speak.  I  must  go  to  my  office. 
The  Prior  from,  San  Beda  desires  to  return  this 
evening.  I  have  done  all  I  can.  I  have  told  you 
the  facts  as  they  stand.  Take  courage.  Be  peace- 
able for  your  mother's  sake  and  restrain  yourself 
for  your  own.  It  is  a  frightful  calamity  which 


174  The  Waters  of  Edera 

hangs  over  us  all.  But  it  is  our  duty  to  meet  it 
like  men." 

"  Like  men !  "  muttered  Adone  as  he  rose  to  his 
feet;  had  not  the  child  from  the  Abruzzi  rocks  a 
better  sense  of  man's  duty  than  this  priest  so 
calm  and  wise? 

"  Men  resist,"  he  said  very  low. 

"  Men  resist,"  repeated  Don  Silverio.  "  They 
resist  when  their  resistance  serves  any  purpose, 
but  when  it  can  only  serve  to  crush  them  uselessly 
under  a  mass  of  iron  they  are  not  men  if  they  re- 
sist, but  madmen." 

"  Farewell,  sir,"  said  Adone. 

And  with  an  obeisance  he  went  out  of  the 
chamber. 

"  Poor  bpy !  Poor,  passionate,  dear  youth !  " 
thought  Don  Silverio  as  the  door  closed.  "  He 
thinks  me  cold  and  without  emotion;  how  little 
he  knows !  He  cannot  suffer  as  I  suffer  for  him 
and  for  my  poor  wretched  people.  What  will 
they  do  when  they  shall  know  ?  They  will  mourn 
like  starved  sheep  bleating  in  a  field  of  stones, 
and  I,  their  shepherd,  shall  not  have  a  blade  of 
grass  wherewith  to  comfort  them !  " 


XI 

ADONE'S  sight  was  troubled  as  soon  as  he 
passed  out  of  the  dusky  room  into  the  blaze  of 
noonday  sunshine.  His  eyes  seemed  filled  with 
blood.  His  brain  was  dizzy.  That  which  had  been 
his  sheet-anchor  in  all  doubts  and  contrition,  his 
faith  in  and  his  reverence  for  Don  Silverio  availed 
him  nothing  now.  A  blind  sympathy  with  his 
most  violent  instincts  was  the  only  thing  which 
could  now  content  or  console  him. 

He  was  in  that  state  to  which  all  counsels  of 
moderation  appear  but  so  much  treason  and  un- 
kindness.  As  he  went  out  of  the  priest's  house 
in  that  dazzling  light,  a  hand  caught  his  sleeve 
and  that  young  flutelike  voice  of  which  he  had 
thought  murmured  to  him  — 

"  Adone !  what  tidings  ?  What  has  he  told 
you?" 

Nerina,  having  run  across  the  bridge  and  up 
the  street  after  the  little  dog,  had  seen  him  and 
Don  Silverio  enter,  and  had  waited  for  Adone  to 
come  out  of  the  house.  Adone  pushed  her  away. 

"  Let  me  be !  "  he  said  impatiently.  "  It  is  all 
bad — bad — bad.  Bad  as  ill-blood.  Bad  as  crime." 


176  The  Waters  of  Edera 

She  clung  to  his  arm  nevertheless. 

"  Come  into  the  church  and  tell  me.  No  one 
cares  as  I  do." 

"  Poor  little  soul !  " 

He  let  her  draw  him  into  the  great  porch  of  the 
church  and  thence  into  the  church  itself;  it  was 
dark  as  it  always  was,  cold  as  an  autumn  evening, 
damp  even  in  the  canicular  heat. 

"  No  one  will  hear ;  tell  me ! "  said  the  child. 

He  told  her. 

"  And  what  are  you  to  do  ?  "  she  asked,  her 
eyes  dilated  with  horror. 

"'  According  to  him,"  said  Adone  bitterly,  "  I 
am  to  be  meek  and  helpless  as  the  heifer  which 
goes  to  the  slaughter.  Men  must  not  resist  what 
the  law  permits."  , 

Nerina  was  mute.  To  dispute  what  Don  Sil- 
verio  said  was  like  blasphemy  to  her,  she  hon- 
oured him  with  all  her  soul,  but  she  loved 
Adone. 

She  loved  the  Edera  water  too;  that  fair  green 
rippling  water  on  whose  bank  she  had  sat  naked 
under  the  dock  leaves  the  day  the  two  rams 
had  fought.  That  which  was  threatened  was  an 
unholy,  wicked,  cruel  robbery.  Was  it  indeed 
necessary  to  yield  to  it  in  submission? 

She  remembered  a  saying  of  Baruffo's :  "  If  a 
man  stand  up  to  me  I  leave  him  some  coins  in 
his  pocket,  some  life  in  his  body ;  but  if  he  crouch 


The  Waters  of  Edera  177 

and  cringe  I  stick  him  in  the  throat.  He  is  a 
craven." 

The  doctrine  of  Baruffo  seemed  to  her  the 
more  sound.  It  wanned  the  blood  of  the  little 
Abruzzi-born  maiden  to  recall  it.  In  the  high 
mountains  and  forests  the  meeker  virtues  are  not 
greatly  honoured. 

She  stood  by  Adone's  side,  knitting  her  brows 
under  her  auburn  curling  locks,  clinching  her 
hands. 

"  Is  there  one  who  does  this  evil  most  of  all  ?  " 
she  said  at  length.  "  One  we  could  reach  ?  " 

"  You  are  a  brave  child,  Nerina !  "  said  Adone, 
and  his  words  made  her  proud.  "  I  fear  there  is 
a  crowd.  Such  men  are  like  locusts ;  they  come  in 
swarms.  But  the  first  man  who  touches  the 
water " 

"  Shall  sup  of  it  and  drown." 

The  little  girl  added  the  words  with  a  fierce  joy 
in  her  great  bright  eyes. 

"  Hush !  "  said  Adone,  "  and  get  you  home- 
ward, and  tell  my  mother  that  Don  Silverio  has 
returned,  and  that  I  will  come  back  to  my  work 
in  a  little  while.  Tell  her  he  says  there  is  no 
hope." 

Nerina  obeyed  him  instantly,  her  bare  feet  fly- 
ing over  the  stones  of  the  street.  He  was  left 
alone  in  the  sombre  church  with  the  great  winged 
angels  of  stone  above  his  head. 


178  The  Waters  of  Edera 

He  was  grateful  for  its  gloom.  He  shrank 
from  the  light  of  the  morning.  Every  drop  of 
blood  in  his  body,  and  in  his  brain,  and  in  his 
limbs,  seemed  to  him  to  turn  to  fire — a  fire  which 
all  the  waters  of  the  Edera  would  never  quench. 

How  could  they  be  accused  of  rebellion  or 
wrong-doing  because  they  wanted  to  keep  the 
water  running  in  the  channel  which  it  had  made 
for  itself  in  the  very  beginning  of  the  world  ? 

The  Edera  was  ancient  as  its  neighbours,  the 
Fiumicino  which  heard  the  voice  of  Caesar;  or  the 
Marechia  which  was  bridged  by  Augustus ;  ancient, 
as  the  fountain  of  Arethusa,  as  the  lake  of  Diana 
Nemorensis.  What  sacrilege  could  be  more  hein- 
ous than  to  chase  it  from  its  chosen  course?  No 
Lucumon  of  Etruria  or  Esarch  of  Ravenna  or 
Pope  of  Rome  had  ever  dared  to  touch  it.  The 
revolutionists !  they,  who  only  sought  to  preserve 
it?  The  revolutionists  were  those  who  with  alien 
hands  and  vampire's  greed  would  seek  to  disturb 
its  peace. 


XII 

ALL  that  day  the  people  of  Ruscino  crowded 
round  the  Presbytery. 

"  What  of  the  Edera  water,  sir  ?  "  they  asked 
him  a  hundred  times  in  the  shrill  cries  of  the 
women,  in  the  rude  bellow  of  the  men,  in  the 
high-pitched,  dissonant  clamour  of  angry  speak- 
ers. And  all  the  day  his  patience  and  kindness 
were  abused  and  his  nerves  racked  and  strained 
in  the  effort  to  persuade  them  that  the  river  which 
ran  beneath  their  walls  was  no  more  theirs  than 
the  stars  which  shone  above  it. 

It  was  hopeless  to  bring  home  to  their  intelli- 
gence either  the  invalidity  of  their  claim,  or  the 
peril  which  would  lie  in  their  opposition. 

"  'Twas  there  in  the  beginning  of  time,"  they 
said,  "  There  it  must  be  for  our  children's  chil- 
dren." 

He  talked  nonsense,  they  thought;  who  should 
be  able  to  stop  a  river  which  was  for  ever  run- 
ning ?  The  Edera  water  was  carried  in  the  womb 
of  the  Leonessa;  Leonessa  gave  it  fresh  birth 
every  day. 

Yes !  thought  Don  Silverio  as  he  walked  by  the 
179 


1 80  The  Waters  of  Edera 

river  after  sunset  and  watched  its  bright,  impetu- 
ous current  dash  under  the  stones  and  shingle 
whilst  two  kingfishers  flashed  along  its  surface. 
Yes,  truly  Nature  would  pour  it  forth  every  day 
from  her  unfailing  breast  so  long  as  man  did  not 
do  it  outrage.  But  how  long  would  that  be? 
A  year,  two  years,  three  years,  at  most ;  then  its 
place  would  know  it  no  more,  and  its  song  would 
be  silent  The  water-pipet  would  make  its  nest 
no  more  in  its  sedges,  and  the  blue  porphyrion 
would  woo  his  mate  no  more  on  its  bosom.  As 
one  of  the  rich  men  in  Rome  had  said  to  him  with 
a  cynical  smile,  "  The  river  will  be  there  always, 
only  it  will  be  dry !  " 

In  the  gloaming  he  went  and  spoke  to  Adone's 
mother.  She  was  at  her  spinning-wheel,  but  her 
hands  moved  mechanically;  her  face  was  dark 
and  her  eyelids  swollen. 

"  My  friend,"  he  said,  as  he  sat  down  on  the 
bench  beneath  the  rose-tree,  "  I  have  brought  you 
ill-tidings." 

"It  is  true  then,  sir?" 

"Alas!" 

"  I  do  not  believe  it.    God  will  not  let  it  be." 

"  Would  that  I  could  think  so." 

"  'Tis  you,  sir,  who  should  think  so,  and  not  I." 

"  Madame  Clelia,"  he  said,  with  some  impa- 
tience, "  it  is  no  use  to  dream  dreams.  Try  and 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 8 1 

persuade  your  son  to  accept  the  inevitable.  My 
words  seem  harsh.  They  are  not  so.  But  I  dare 
not  let  you  cherish  your  illusions  like  this;  blind 
yourself  to  fact,  you  expect  some  supernatural  in- 
tercession. They  will  take  your  river;  they  will 
take  your  lands.  Your  house  will  be  yours  no 
more.  If  you  do  not  go  peaceably  they  will  have 
you  turned  out,  as  if  you  were  a  debtor.  This 
may  take  some  time  for  it  will  be  done  with  all 
due  legal  forms,  but  it  will  be  done.  They  will 
pay  you  and  your  son  some  value  by  appraisement, 
but  they  will  take  your  land  and  your  house  and 
all  that  is  yours  and  his ;  I  have  seen  the  plans  in 
Rome.  Can  you  think  that  I  should  invent  this 
to  torture  you?  There  will  be  a  process,  a  sen- 
tence, an  award;  the  money  the  law  allots  to  you 
will  be  strictly  paid  to  you ;  but  you  will  be  driven 
away  from  the  Terra  Vergine.  Realise  this. 
Try  and  keep  your  reason  and  save  your  son  from 
madness.  Surely,  where  there  is  great  love  be- 
tween two  people,  and  bonds  of  memory  and  mu- 
tual duty,  and  strong  faith,  there  a  home  may  be 
made  anywhere,  even  over  seas  ?  " 

Clelia  Alba  snapped  with  violence  the  thread 
she  span.  "  They  have  talked  you  over,  sir,"  she 
said  curtly.  "  When  you  went  away  you  were 
with  us." 

"  With  you! "  he  echoed.     "  In  heart,  in  pity, 


1 8  2  The  Waters  of  Edera 

in  sympathy,  yes;  never  could  I  be  otherwise. 
But  were  I  to  see  you  struck  with  lightning, 
should  I  save  you  by  telling  you  that  lightning 
did  not  kill  ?  I  did  not  know  that  the  enterprise 
was  as  mature  as  I  found  it  to  be  when  I  saw  the 
promoters  of  it  in  Rome.  But  I  know  now  that 
it  has  been  long  in  incubation ;  you  must  remem- 
ber that  every  bend  and  runlet  of  the  water  are 
marked  on  the  ordnance  maps;  every  stream, 
however  small,  is  known  to  the  technical  office, 
and  the  engineers  civil  and  military.  I  abhor  the 
project.  It  is  to  me  a  desecration,  an  infamy,  a 
robbery;  it  will  ruin  the  Vald'edera  from  every 
point  of  view;  but  we  can  do  nothing;  this  is 
what  I  implore  you  to  realise.  We  are  as  help- 
less as  one  of  your  fowls  when  you  cut  its  throat. 
Violence  can  only  hurry  your  son  into  the  grip  of 
the  law.  His  rights  are  morally  as  plain  as  yon- 
der snow  on  those  mountains;  but,  because  they 
will  buy  his  rights  at  what  will  be  publicly  esti- 
mated at  a  fair  price,  the  law  will  not  allow  him 
to  consider  himself  injured.  My  dear  friend,  you 
are  a  woman  of  sense  and  foresight ;  try  to  see  this 
thing  as  it  is." 

"  I  will  hear  what  Adone  says,  sir,"  replied 
Clelia  Alba  doggedly.  "  If  he  bids  me  burn  the 
house,  I  shall  burn  it." 

Don  Silverio  was  heart-sick  and  impatient. 
What  use  was  it  to  argue  with  such  minds  as 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 8  3 

these  ?    As  well  might  he  waste  his  words  on  the 
trunks  of  the  olives,  on  the  oxen  in  their  stalls. 

They  were  wronged. 

That  the  wrong  done  them  was  masked  under 
specious  pretences  and  was  protected  by  all  the 
plate  armour  of  law  and  government,  made  the 
outrage  little  the  worse  to  them.  The  brigand 
from  the  hills  who  used  to  harry  their  cattle  and 
pillage  their  strong-box  looked  to  them  a  hero,  a 
saint,  a  Christ,  compared  to  these  modern  thieves 
who  were  environed  with  all  the  defences  and 
impunity  which  the  law  and  the  State  could  give. 
When  an  earth-shock  makes  the  soil  under  your 
feet  quiver,  and  gape,  and  mutter,  you  feel  that 
unnatural  forces  are  being  hurled  against  you,  you 
feel  that  you  are  the  mere  sport  and  jest  of  an 
unjust  deity.  This  was  what  they  felt  now. 

"  Nay,"  said  Clelia  Alba,  "  if  the  earth  opened, 
and  took  us,  it  would  be  kinder ;  it  would  bury  us 
at  least  under  our  own  rooftree." 

What  use  was  it  to  speak  to  such  people  as 
these  of  the  right  of  expropriation  granted  by  par- 
liament, of  the  authority  of  a  dicastero,  and  of  a 
prefecture,  of  the  sophistries  and  arguments  of 
lawyers,  of  the  adjudication  of  values,  of  the 
appraisement  of  claims?  They  were  wronged: 
and  they  came  of  a  race  and  of  a  soil  in  which  the 
only  fitting  redresser  of  wrong  was  revenge. 

"  Mother,"  cried  Adone,   "  my  father  would 


1 84  The  Waters  of  Edera 

not  have  given  up  his  land  as  meekly  as  a  sheep 
yields  up  her  life." 

"No,"  said  Clelia  Alba;  "whether  he  came 
from  those  war-lords  of  old  I. know  not,  but  he 
would  have  fought  as  they  fought." 


XIII 

THE  autumn  and  winter  passed  without  more 
being  heard  in  the  Vald'edera  o'f  the  new  invasion. 
The  peasantry  generally  believed  that  such  silence 
was  favourable  to  their  wishes ;  but  Don  Silverio 
knew  that  it  was  otherwise.  The  promoters  of 
the  work  did  not  concern  themselves  with  the  local 
population,  they  dealt  with  greater  folks;  with 
those  who  administered  the  various  communes, 
and  who  controlled  the  valuation  of  the  land 
through  which  the  course  of  the  Edera  ran; 
chiefly  those  well-born  persons  who  constituted 
the  provincial  council.  A  great  deal  of  money 
would  change  hands,  but  it  was  intended,  by  all 
through  whose  fingers  those  heavy  sums  would 
pass,  that  as  little  of  the  money  as  possible  should 
find  its  way  to  the  owners  of  the  soil.  A  public 
work  is  like  a  fat  hog;  between  the  slaughterers, 
the  salesmen,  the  middlemen,  and  the  consumers, 
little  falls  to  the  original  holder  of  the  hog.  The 
peasants  of  the -Vald'edera  were  astonished  that 
none  came  to  treat  with  them;  but  they  did  not 
understand  that  they  dwelt  under  a  paternal  gov- 
ernment, and  the  first  care  of  a  paternal  govern- 
185 


1 86  The  Waters  of  Edera 

ment  is  to  do  everything  for  its  children  which 
is  likely  to  promise  any  profit  itself. 

The  men  of  business  whom  Don  Silverio  had 
seen  in  Rome  did  not  trouble  themselves  with  the 
rustic  proprietors  of  either  water  or  land;  they 
treated  with  the  great  officials  of  the  department, 
with  the  deputies,  the  prefects,  and  sub-prefects, 
the  syndics  and  assessors;  so  a  perfect  silence  on 
the  question  reigned  from  the  rise  of  the  river  to 
its  mouth,  and  many  of  the  men  said  over  their 
wood-fires  that  they  had  been  scared  for  nothing. 
The  younger  men,  however,  and  those  who  were 
under  Adone's  influence,  were  more  wary;  they 
guessed  that  the  matter  was  being  matured  with- 
out them;  that  when  the  hog  should  be  bacon, 
should  be  cut  up  and  cured,  and  eaten,  the  small- 
est and  rustiest  flitch  would  then  be  divided 
amongst  them.  Agents,  such  agents  as  were 
ministerial  instruments  of  these  magnates  in  elec- 
tion time,  went  amongst  the  scattered  people  and 
spoke  to  them  of  the  great  public  utility  of  the 
contemplated  works,  and  made  them  dispirited 
and  doubtful  of  the  value  of  their  holdings,  and 
uncertain  of  the  legality  of  their  tenures.  But 
these  agents  were  cautious  and  chary  of  promises, 
for  they  knew  that  in  this  district  the  temper  of 
men  was  proud  and  hot  and  revengeful ;  and  they 
knew  also  that  when  these  rural  owners  should 
be  brought  into  the  courts  to  receive  their  price, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  187 

they  would  be  dealt  with  just  as  the  great  men 
chose.  One  by  one,  so  that  each  should  be  unsup- 
ported by  his  neighbours,  the  men  of  the  valley 
were  summoned,  now  to  this  town,  now  to  the 
other,  and  were  deftly  argued  with,  and  told  that 
what  was  projected  would  be  their  salvation,  and 
assured  that  the  delegates  who  would  be  sent  in 
their  name  by  their  provincial  council  to  the  capi- 
tal would  defend  all  their  dearest  interests. 

The  rich  man,  the  man  of  business,  the  man  of 
cities  may  receive  in  such  transactions  compensa- 
tion, which  is  greatly  to  their  advantage,  because 
traffic  is  their  trade,  because  to  buy  and  sell,  and 
turn  and  re-turn,  and  roll  the  ball  of  gold  so  that 
it  grows  bigger  every  hour,  is  their  custom  and  in- 
terest. But  the  poor  man,  the  rustic,  the  man 
with  the  one  ewe  lamb,  loses  always,  whether  he 
assents  to  the  sale  or  has  it  forced  upon  him. 
These  people  of  the  valley  might  have  a  little 
ready  money  given  them  on  valuation,  but  it 
would  be  money  clipped  and  cropped  by  the 
avarice  of  intermediates  until  little  of  it  would 
remain  and  they  would  be  driven  out  to  begin  life 
anew ;  away  from  their  old  roof  tree  and  the  fruits 
of  long  years  of  labour. 

From  far  and  near  men  came  to  Ruscino  to  take 
counsel  of  its  vicar;  his  wisdom  being  esteemed 
and  his  intelligence  known  in  the  valley  beyond 
the  confines  of  his  parish ;  and  what  advice  could 


1 88  The  Waters  of  Edera 

he  give  them  ?  He  could  but  tell  them  that  it  was 
useless  to  kick  against  the  pricks.  He  knew  so 
well  the  cold,  curt,  inflexible  official  answer;  the 
empty,  vapouring  regrets,  false,  simpering,  phari- 
saical ;  the  parrot-phrases  of  public  interests,  public 
considerations,  public  welfare ;  the  smile,  the  sneer, 
the  self-complacent  shrug  of  those  whose  bribe  is 
safely  pocketed  and  who  know  that  only  the  peo- 
ple whom  they  profess  to  serve  will  suffer.  To 
him  as  to  them  it  seemed  a  monstrous  thing  to 
take  away  the  water  from  its  natural  channel  and 
force  the  men  who  lived  on  it  and  by  it  to  alter  all 
their  ways  of  life  and  see  their  birthplace  changed 
into  a  desert  in  order  that  aliens  might  make 
money.  But  he  could  not  counsel  them  to  resist ; 
no  resistance  was  possible.  It  was  like  any  other 
tyranny  of  the  State;  like  the  fiscal  brutality 
which  sold  up  a  poor  man's  hayrick  or  clothing 
because  he  could  not  pay  the  poll-tax.  If  the  poor 
man  resisted,  if  he  fired  his  old  fowling-piece,  or 
used  his  knife  on  the  minions  of  the  State,  what 
use  was  such  resistance?  He  went  to  rot  in  pri- 
son. 

His  calling,  his  conscience,  his  good  sense,  his 
obedience  to  law,  all  alike  compelled  him  to  urge 
on  them  patience,  submission,  and  inaction  before 
the  provocation  of  a  great  wrong.  He  dared  not 
even  let  them  see  one  tithe  of  the  sympathy  he 


The  Waters  of  Edera  1 89 

felt,  lest  if  he  did  so  they  should  draw  from  it  an 
incentive  to  illegal  action. 

The  part  which  he  was  obliged  to  take  in  thus 
persuading  the  people  to  be  tranquil  under  in- 
justice estranged  him  farther  and  farther  from 
Adone  Alba,  who  found  it  a  cowardice  and  a 
treachery,  although  he  dared  not  say  so  in  words. 
Had  he  retained  the  coolness  of  reason  the  youth 
would  have  known  and  acknowledged  that  in  the 
position  of  Don  Silverio  no  other  course  would 
have  been  possible  or  decent.  But  reason  had 
long  left  him,  and  inaction  and  impulse  alone  re- 
mained. He  would  not  allow  that  a  wrong  might 
be  condemned,  and  yet  endured.  To  him  all  en- 
durance had  in  it  the  manners  of  condonation. 

He  ceased  to  have  any  faith  in  his  friend  and 
teacher ;  and  gradually  grew  more  and  more 
alienated  from  him ;  their  intimate  affection,  their 
frequent  intercourse,  their  long  walks  and  even- 
ing meetings  were  over ;  and  even  as  his  spiritual 
director  the  vicar  had  no  longer  power  over  him. 
Most  of  his  actions  and  intentions  were  concealed ; 
except  in  the  younger  men  of  the  district  who  saw 
as  he  saw  he  had  now  no  confidence  in  any  one. 
The  impending  loss  of  the  land  and  the  water 
turned  all  the  sweetness  of  his  nature  to  gall.  He 
thought  that  never  in  the  history  of  the  world  had 
any  wrong  so  black  been  done.  He,  himself, 


190  The  Waters  of  Edera 

flung  broadcast  the  fires  of  burning  incitation 
without  heeding  or  caring  whither  the  flames 
might  reach.  Riots  had  been  successful  before 
this;  why  not  now?  He  was  young  enough  and 
innocent  enough  to  believe  in  the  divine  right  of  a 
just  cause.  If  that  were  denied,  what  remained 
to  the  weak  ? 

If  he  could,  he  would  have  set  the  valley  in 
flames  from  one  end  to  the  other  rather  than  have 
allowed  the  foreigners  to  seize  it.  Had  not  his 
forefathers  perished  in  fire  on  yonder  hill  rather 
than  cede  to  the  Borgia? 

Evening  after  evening  he  looked  at  the  sun  set- 
ting behind  the  Rocca  and  felt  the  black  rage  in 
him  gnaw  at  his  heart  like  a  vulture. 

They  would  offer  him  money  for  this  dear 
earth,  for  this  fair,  beloved  stream! — the  mere 
thought  choked  him  as  a  man  who  loved  his  wife 
would  be  choked  at  the  thought  of  her  dishonoured 
sale. 

Some  were  half  persuaded  that  it  would  be  a 
fine  thing  to  get  some  crisp  banknotes  in  exchange 
for  waste  ground  which  yielded  little,  or  a  cabin 
which  was  falling  to  pieces,  or  a  strip  of  woodland 
which  gave  them  fuel,  but  not  much  more.  But 
the  majority  were  angry,  irreconcilable,  furious  to 
lose  the  water,  full  of  their  wrongs.  These  were 
glad  to  find  in  Adone  Alba  a  spokesman  and  a 
leader;  they  were  tow  which  caught  fire  at  his 


The  Waters  of  Edera  191 

torch.  They  comprehended  little,  but  they  knew 
that  they  were  wronged;  and  they  agreed  with 
him  that  the  labourers  who  should  come  from  over 
the  border  to  meddle  with  them  should  be  made 
to  rue  it  bitterly. 

The  Italian  goes  over  seas,  indeed;  huddled 
under  the  hatches  of  emigrant  ships;  miserable, 
starved,  confined;  unable  to  move,  scarce  able  to 
breathe,  like  the  unhappy  beasts  carried  with  him. 
But  he  never  goes  willingly;  he  never  wrenches 
himself  from  the  soil  without  torn  nerves  and  ach- 
ing heart ;  if  he  live  and  make  a  little  money  in  exile 
he  comes  back  to  the  shadow  of  the  village  church, 
to  the  sound  of  the  village  bell,  which  he  knew 
in  his  boyhood,  to  walk  in  the  lanes  where  he 
threw  his  wooden  quoit  as  a  lad,  and  to  play  domi- 
noes under  the  green  bough  of  the  winehouse 
where  as  a  child  he  used  to  watch  his  elders  and 
envy  them. 

Most  of  these  people  dwelling  on  the  Edera 
water  had  not  been  five  miles  away  from  the  river 
in  all  their  lives.  The  moorland  birds  and  beasts 
were  farther  afield  than  they.  They  had  no  in- 
terest in  what  was  beyond  their  own  freehold; 
they  did  not  even  know  or  care  whither  the  water 
went,  or  whence  it  came.  Where  it  was,  they 
owned  it.  That  was  enough  for  them. 

"  Sir,  what  is  it  Adone  does?  "  said  Clelia  Alba, 
one  dusky  and  stormy  eve  after  vespers.  "  At 


192  The  Waters  of  Edera 

nightfall  out  he  goes;  and  never  a  word  to  me, 
only  '  Your  blessing,  mother/  he  says,  as  if  he 
might  lose  his  life  where  he  goes.  I  thought  at 
first  it  was  some  love  matter,  for  he  is  young ;  but 
it  cannot  be  that,  for  he  is  too  serious,  and  he  goes 
fully  armed,  with  his  father's  pistols  in  his  belt 
and  his  own  long  dagger  in  his  stocking.  True, 
they  go  so  to  a  love  tryst,  if  it  be  a  dangerous 
one ;  if  the  woman  be  wedded ;  only  I  think  it  is 
not  that,  for  men  in  love  are  different.  I  think 
that  he  broods  over  some  act." 

"  Neither  you  nor  I  can  do  aught.  He  is  of 
age  to  judge  for  himself,"  said  Don  Silverioj 
"  but,  like  you,  I  do  not  think  a  woman  is  the 
cause  of  his  absence." 

"  Can  you  not  speak  to  him,  sir?  " 

"  I  have  spoken.  It  is  useless.  He  is  moved 
by  a  motive  stronger  than  any  argument  we  can 
use.  In  a  word,  good  Clelia,  this  coming  seizure 
of  the  water  is  suffering  so  great  to  him  that  he 
loses  his  reason.  He  is  trying  to  make  the  men 
of  the  commune  see  as  he  sees.  He  wants  to 
rouse  them  to  arm  them.  He  might  as  well  set 
the  calves  in  your  stalls  to  butt  the  mountain 
granite." 

"  Maybe,  sir,"  said  Clelia  Alba,  unwillingly ; 
but  her  eyes  gleamed,  and  her  stern,  proud  face 
grew  harder.  "  But  he  has  the  right  to  do  it  if  he 
can.  If  they  touch  the  water  they  are  thieves, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  193 

worse  than  those  who  came  down  from  the  hills 
in  the  years  of  my  girlhood." 

"  You  would  encourage  him  in  insurrection, 
then?" 

"  Nay,  I  would  not  do  that ;  but  neither  would 
I  blame  him.  Every  man  has  a  right  to  defend 
his  own.  Neither  his  father  nor  mine,  sir,  were 
cowards." 

"  This  is  no  question  of  cowardice.  It  is  a 
question  of  common  sense.  A  few  country  lads 
cannot  oppose  a  government.  With  what 
weapons  can  they  do  so?  Courage  I  honour; 
without  it  all  active  virtues  are  supine;  but  it  is 
not  courage  to  attempt  the  impossible,  to  lead  the 
ignorant  to  death — or  worse." 

"  Of  that  my  son  must  judge,  sir,"  said  Adone's 
mother,  inflexible  to  argument.  "  I  shall  not  set 
myself  against  him.  He  is  master  now.  If  he 
bids  me  fire  the  place  I  shall  do  it.  For  four-and- 
twenty  years  he  has  obeyed  me  like  a  little  child; 
never  a  murmur,  never  a  frown.  Now  he  is  his 
own  master,  and  master  of  the  land.  I  shall  do 
as  he  tells  me.  It  is  his  turn  now,  and  he  is  no 
fool,  sir,  Adone." 

"  He  is  no  fool ;  no.  But  he  is  beside  himself. 
He  is  incapable  of  judgment.  His  blood  is  on 
fire  and  fires  his  brain." 

"  I  think  not,  sir.  He  is  quiet.  He  speaks 
little " 


1 94  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  Because  he  meditates  what  will  not  bear 
speech.  Were  he  violent  I  should  be  less  alarmed. 
He  shuns  me — me — his  oldest  friend." 

"  Because  no  doubt,  sir,  he  feels  you  are  against 
him." 

"  Against  him !  How  can  I,  being  what  I  am, 
be  otherwise?  Could  you  expect  me  to  foment 
insurrection,  and  what  less  than  that  can  opposi- 
tion such  as  he  intends  become  ?  " 

"  You  speak  as  you  feel  bound  to  speak,  sir, 
no  doubt." 

"  But  think  of  the  end  ?  Must  not  every  action 
be  weighed  and  considered  and  judgment  passed 
on  it  by  what  will  be  its  issue?  No  rising  of  our 
poor  people  can  effect  anything  except  their  own 
destruction.  It  is  only  a  demagogue  who  would 
urge  them  on  to  it.  Adone  is  not  a  demagogue. 
He  is  a  generous  youth  frantic  from  sorrow,  but 
helpless.  Can  you  not  see  that  ?  " 

"  I  do  not  see  that  he  is  helpless,"  said  his 
mother  with  obstinacy.  "  The  thing  they  are 
about  to  do  us  is  unjust.  I  would  load  a  gun  my- 
self against  them,  and  if  money  be  what  is  wanted 
I  would  give  Adone  my  pearls.  He  asks  me  for 
nothing,  but  when  he  does  I  will  strip  myself  to 
my  shift  to  aid  him." 

"  It  is  a  terrible  madness !  "  cried  Don  Silverio. 
"  What  can  your  fowling-piece  or  your  necklace 
do  against  all  the  force  these  speculators  and  con- 


The  Waters  of  Edera  195 

tractors  will  employ?  It  is  a  great,  a  heinous, 
wrong  which  will  be  done  to  you ;  that  no  one  can 
feel  more  strongly  than  I.  But  there  are  wrongs 
to  which  we  must  submit  when  we  are  weak ;  and, 
my  good  Clelia,  against  this  we  poor  folks  in 
the  Vale  of  Edera  are  as  weak  as  the  teal  in  the 
marshes  against  the  swivel  guns  of  the  sports- 
men's punts." 

But  he  argued  in  vain ;  logic  and  persuasion  are 
alike  useless  when  opposed  to  the  rock  of  ignor- 
ance and  obstinacy.  She  held  him  in  deep  rever- 
ence; she  brought  her  conscience  to  his  judgment; 
she  thought  him  beyond  ordinary  humanity;  but 
when  he  endeavoured  to  persuade  her  that  her  son 
was  wrong  he  failed. 

"  Sir,  you  know  that  this  crime  against  the  river 
will  ruin  us,"  she  said  doggedly.  "  Why  then 
should  you  try  to  tie  our  hands  ?  I  do  not  know 
what  Adone  does;  his  mind  is  hid  from  me,  but 
if,  as  you  say,  he  wants  a  rising  of  our  people,  it 
is  natural  and  just." 

When  the  mind  of  the  peasant  —  man  or 
woman — be  made  up  in  its  stubbornness,  all  learn- 
ing, wisdom,  experience,  even  fact  speaks  in  vain  ; 
it  opposes  to  all  proofs  the  passive  resistance  of  a 
dogged  incredulity ;  to  reason  with  it  is  as  useless 
as  to  quarry  stone  with  a  razor. 

Many  and  many  a  time  had  he  given  up  in  ex- 
haustion, and  nausea  his  endeavours  to  convince 


196  The  Waters  of  Edera 

the  rural  mind  of  some  simple  fact,  some  clear 
cause,  some  elementary  principle.  He  knew  that 
Clelia  Alba  would  never  believe  in  the  exile  which 
would  be  her  certain  fate  until  the  armed  and 
liveried  creatures  of  the  State  should  drive  her 
from  her  home  by  order  of  the  State.  He  had 
seen  in  Rome  that  there  was  no  possible  chance 
of  opposing  this  enterprise  against  the  Edera 
water.  It  had  been  decided  on  by  men  of  money 
who  had  the  ear  of  ministers,  the  precedence  in 
ante-chambers,  the  means  of  success  in  political 
departments  and  in  commercial  centres.  A  few 
scattered  provincial  owners  of  land  and  labourers 
on  land  might  as  well  try  to  oppose  these  men  as 
the  meek  steinbok  in  the  mountain  solitudes  to 
escape  the  expanding  bullet  of  a  prince's  rifle. 
Yet  he  also  saw  how  impossible  it  was  to  expect 
a  young  man  like  Adone,  with  his  lineage,  his 
temperament,  his  courage,  and  his  mingling  of 
ignorance  and  knowledge,  to  accept  the  inevitable 
without  combat.  As  well  might  he  be  bidden  to 
accept  dishonour. 

The  remorse  in  his  soul  was  keen,  inasmuch  as 
without  him  Adone  would  never  have  known  of 
his  descent  from  the  lords  of  Ruscino,  and  never, 
probably,  have  acquired  that  "  little"  learning 
which  a  poet  of  the  north  has  said  is  a  dangerous 
thing. 

"  Better,"  thought  Don  Silverio,  with  torment- 


The  Waters  of  Edera  197 

ing  self-reproach,  "  better  have  left  him  to  his 
plough,  to  his  scythe,  to  his  reaping-hook;  better 
have  left  him  in  ignorance  of  the  meaning  of  art 
and  of  study ;  better  have  left  him  a  mere  peasant 
to  beget  peasants  like  himself.  Then  he  would 
have  suffered  less,  and  might  possibly  have  taken 
peaceably  such  compensation  as  the  law  would 
have  allowed  him  for  the  loss  to  his  land,  and 

• 

have  gone  away  to  the  West,  as  so  many  go, 
leaving  the  soil  they  were  born  on  to  pass  out  of 
culture." 

Would  Adone  ever  have  done  that?  No;  he 
would  not;  he  was  wedded  to  the  soil  like  the 
heaths  that  grew  out  of  it.  He  might  be  violently 
dragged  away,  but  he  would  never  live  elsewhere ; 
his  heart  had  struck  its  roots  too  deeply  into  the 
earth  which  nurtured  him. 

"  Why  did  you  tell  him  of  all  the  great  men 
that  lived?  "  Clelia  Alba  had  often  said  to  him. 
"  Why  did  you  fill  his  soul  with  that  hunger  which 
no  bread  that  is  baked  can  content?  We,  who 
work  to  live,  have  no  time  to  do  aught  except 
work,  and  sleep  awhile  to  get  strength  for  more 
work;  and  so  on,  always  the  same,  until  age  ties 
knots  in  our  sinews,  and  makes  our  blood  thin 
and  slow.  What  use  is  it  to  open  gates  to  him 
which  he  must  never  pass,  to  make  his  mind  a 
tangled  skein  that  can  never  be  undone?  When 
you  work  hard  you  want  to  rest  in  your  resting 


198  The  Waters  of  Edera 

hours,  not  to  dream.  Dreaming  is  no  rest.  He 
is  always  dreaming,  and  now  he  dreams  of  blood 
and  fire." 

His  heart  was  with  them,  and  by  all  the  obli- 
gations of  his  calling  was  forced  to  be  against 
them.  He  was  of  a  militant  temper;  he  would 
gladly  have  led  them  into  action  as  did  the  mar- 
tial priests  of  old ;  but  his  sense,  his  duty,  his  con- 
science, all  forbade  him  to  even  show  them  such 
encouragement  as  would  lie  in  sympathy.  Had 
he  been  rich  he  would  have  taken  their  cause  into 
the  tribunals  and  contested  this  measure  inch  by 
inch,  however  hopelessly.  But  who  would  plead 
for  a  poor  parish,  for  a  penniless  priest?  What 
payment  could  he  offer,  he  who  could  scarcely 
find  the  coins  to  fill  his  salt-box  or  to  mend  his 
surplice  ? 

A  great  anxiety  consumed  him.  He  saw  no 
way  out  of  this  calamity.  The  people  were 
wronged,  grossly  wronged,  but  how  could  they 
right  that  wrong  ?  Bloodshed  would  not  alter  it, 
or  even  cure  it.  What  was  theirs,  and  the  earth's, 
was  to  be  taken  from  them;  and  how  were  they 
to  be  persuaded  that  to  defend  their  own  would 
be  a  crime  ? 

"  There  is  nothing,  then,  but  for  the  people  to 
lie  down  and  let  the  artillery  roll  over  them ! " 
said  Adone  once,  with  bitter  emphasis. 

"  And  the  drivers  and  the   gunners  are  their 


The  Waters  of  Edera  199 

own  brothers,  sons,  nephews,  who  will  not  check 
their  gallop  an  instant  for  that  fact ;  for  the  worst 
thing  about  force  is  that  it  makes  its  human  in- 
struments mere  machines  like  the  guns  which  they 
manoeuvre,"  thought  Don  Silverio,  as  he  an- 
swered aloud :  "  No ;  I  fear  there  will  be  nothing 
else  for  them  to  do  under  any  tyranny,  until  all 
the  nations  of  the  earth  shall  cease  to  send  their 
children  to  be  made  the  janissaries  of  the  State. 
No  alteration  of  existing  dominions  will  be  pos- 
sible so  long  as  the  Armies  exist." 

Adone  was  silent;  convinced  against  his  will, 
and  therefore  convinced  without  effect  or  ad- 
hesion. 

He  dared  not  tell  his  friend  of  the  passionate 
propaganda  which  he  had  begun  up  and  down  the 
course  of  the  Edera,  striving  to  make  these  stocks 
and  stones  stir,  striving  to  make  the  blind  see,  the 
deaf  hear,  the  infirm  rise  and  leap. 

"  Let  us  go  and  make  music,"  said  the  priest  at 
last.  "  That  will  not  harm  any  one,  and  will  do 
our  own  souls  good.  It  is  long  since  I  heard  your 
voice." 

"  It  will  be  longer,"  thought  Adone,  as  he  an- 
swered :  "  Excuse  me,  sir ;  I  cannot  think  of  any 
other  thing  than  this  great  evil  which  hangs  over 
us.  There  is  not  one  of  our  country  people  who 
does  not  curse  the  scheme.  They  are  frightened 
and  stupid,  but  they  are  angry  and  miserable. 


2oo  The  Waters  of  Edera 

Those  who  are  their  spokesmen,  or  who  ought  to 
be,  do  not  say  what  they  wish,  do  not  care  what 
they  wish,  do  not  ask  what  they  wish.  They  are 
the  sons  of  the  soil,  but  they  count  for  nothing. 
If  they  met  to  try  and  do  anything  for  themselves, 
guards — soldiery — would  come  from  a  distance, 
they  say,  and  break  up  the  meetings,  and  carry 
those  who  should  speak  away  to  some  prison. 
The  Government  approves  the  theft  of  the  water ; 
that  is  to  be  enough." 

"  Yet  public  meeting  has  been  a  right  of  the 
people  on  the  Latin  soil  ever  since  the  Caesars." 

"  What  matter  right,  what  matter  wrong  ?  No 
one  heeds  either." 

"  What  can  be  done  then  ?  " 

"  We  must  help  ourselves." 

He  spoke  sullenly  and  under  his  breath.  He 
did  not  dare  to  say  more  clearly  what  was  in  his 
thoughts. 

"  By  brute  force?  "  said  Don  Silverio.  "  That 
were  madness.  What  would  be  the  number  of 
the  able-bodied  men  of  all  three  communes  ?  Let 
us  say  two  thousand;  that  is  over  the  mark. 
What  weapons  would  they  have?  Old  muskets, 
old  fowling-pieces,  and  not  many  of  those;  their 
scythes,  their  axes,  their  sticks.  A  single  bat- 
talion would  cut  them  down  as  you  mow  grass. 
You  have  not  seen  rioters  dispersed  by  trained 
troops.  I  have,  I  have  seen  even  twenty  cara- 


The  Waters  of  Edera  201 

bineers  gallop  down  a  street  full  of  armed  citizens, 
the  carabineers  shooting  right  and  left  without 
selection;  and  the  street,  before  they  had  ridden 
two  hundred  yards,  was  empty  except  for  a  few 
fallen  bodies  which  the  horses  trampled.  You 
can  never  hope  to  succeed  in  these  days  with  a 
mere  jacquerie.  You  might  as  well  set  your 
wheat-sheaves  up  to  oppose  a  field  battery." 

"  Garibaldi,"  muttered  Adone,  "  he  had  naught 
but  raw  levies !  " 

"  Garibaldi  was  an  instinctive  military  genius, 
like  Aguto,  like  Ferruccio,  like  Gian  delle  Bande 
Neri,  like  all  the  great  Condottieri.  But  he 
would  probably  have  rotted  in  the  Spielberg,  or 
been  shot  in  some  fortress  of  the  Quadrilateral,  if 
he  had  not  been  supported  by  that  proclamation  of 
Genoa  and  campaign  of  Lombardy,  which  were 
Louis  Napoleon's  supreme  error  in  French  pol- 
icy." 

Adone  was  silent,  stung  by  that  sense  of  dis- 
comfiture and  mortification  which  comes  upon 
those  who  feel  their  own  inability  to  carry  on  an 
argument.  To  him  Garibaldi  was  superhuman, 
fabulous,  far  away  in  the  mists  of  an  heroic  past, 
as  Ulysses  to  Greek  youths. 

"  You,  sir,  may  preach  patience,"  he  said  sull- 
enly. "It  is  no  doubt  your  duty  to  preach  it. 
But  I  cannot  be  patient.  My  heart  would  choke 
in  my  throat." 


2O2  The  Waters  of  Edera 

Don  Silverio  looked  him  straight  in  the  face. 

"  What  is  it  you  intend  to  do?  " 

"  I  shall  do  what  I  may,  what  I  can." 

"  I  tell  you  that  you  can  do  nothing,  my  son." 

"  How  know  you  that,  reverend  ?  You  are  a 
priest,  not  a  man." 

A  faint  red  colour  came  over  Don  Silverio's 
colourless  face. 

"  One  may  be  both,"  he  said  simply.  "  You 
are  distraught,  my  son,  by  a  great  calamity.  Try 
and  see  yourself  as  others  see  you,  and  do  not  lead 
the  poor  and  ignorant  into  peril.  Will  the  Edera 
waters  be  freer  because  your  neighbours  and  you 
are  at  the  galleys?  The  men  of  gold  who  have 
the  men  of  steel  behind  them  will  be  always 
stronger  than  you." 

"  God  is  over  us  all,"  said  Adone. 

Don  Silverio  was  silent.  He  could  not  refute 
that  expression  of  faith,  but  in  his  soul  he  could 
not  share  it ;  and  Adone  had  said  it,  less  in  faith, 
than  in  obstinacy.  He  meant  to  rouse  the  coun- 
try if  he  could,  let  come  what  might  of  the  rising. 

Who  could  tell  the  issue?  A  spark  from  a 
poor  man's  hearth  had  set  a  city  in  flames  before 
now. 

"  How  can  you  think  me  indifferent  ?  "  said 
Don  Silverio.  "  Had  I  no  feeling  for  you  should 
I  not  feel  for  myself?  Almost  certainly  my  life 
will  be  doomed  to  end  here.  Think  you  that  I 


The  Waters  of  Edera  203 

shall  see  with  callousness  the  ruin  of  this  fair 
landscape,  which  has  been  my  chief  consolation 
through  so  many  dreary  years  ?  You,  who  deem 
yourself  so  wholly  without  hope,  may  find  solace 
if  you  choose  to  take  it.  You  are  young,  you  are 
free,  all  the  tenderest  ties  of  life  can  be  yours  if 
you  choose;  if  this  home  be  destroyed  you  may 
make  another  where  you  will.  But  I  am  bound 
here.  I  must  obey;  I  must  submit.  I  cannot 
move ;  I  cannot  alter  or  renew  my  fate ;  and  to  me 
the  destruction  of  the  beauty  of  the  Edera  valley 
will  be  the  loss  of  the  only  pleasure  of  my  exist- 
ence. Try  and  see  with  my  eyes,  Adone;  it  may 
help  you  to  bear  your  burden." 

But  he  might  as  well  have  spoken  to  the  water 
itself,  or  to  the  boulders  of  its  rocks,  or  to  the 
winds  which  swept  its  surface. 

"  It  is  not  yours,"  said  Adone,  almost  brutally. 
"  You  were  not  born  here.  You  cannot  know ! 
Live  elsewhere?  My  mother  and  I?  Sooner  a 
thousand  times  would  we  drown  in  Edera !  " 

The  water  was  golden  under  the  reflections  of 
the  sun  as  he  spoke;  the  great  net  was  swaying 
in  it,  clear  of  the  sword  rush  and  iris;  a  king- 
fisher like  a  jewel  was  threading  its  shallows,  blue 
as  the  veronica;  there  was  the  fresh  smell  of  the 
heather  and  the  wild  roses  on  the  air.  "  You  do 
not  know  what  it  is  to  love  a  thing! — how 
should  you  ?  —  you,  a  priest !  "  said  Adone. 


204  The  Waters  of  Edera 

Don  Silverio  did  not  reply.  He  went  on  down 
the  course  of  the  stream. 

One  morning  in  early  April  Adone  received  a 
private  invitation  to  attend  in  five  days'  time  at 
the  Muncipality  of  San  Beda  to  hear  of  something 
which  concerned  him.  It  was  brought  by  the  lit- 
tle old  postman  who  went  the  rounds  of  the  dis- 
trict once  a  week  on  his  donkey ;  the  five  days  had 
already  expired  before  the  summons  was  de- 
livered. Adone's  ruddy  cheeks  grew  pale  as  he 
glanced  over  it ;  he  thrust  it  into  the  soil  and  drove 
his  spade  through  it.  The  old  man,  waiting  in 
hopes  to  get  a  draught  of  wine,  looked  at  him  in 
dismay. 

"  Is  that  a  way  to  treat  their  Honours'  com- 
mands ?  "  he  said  aghast. 

Adone  did  not  answer  or  raise  his  head;  he 
went  on  with  his  digging;  he  was  turning  and 
trenching  the  soil  to  plant  potatoes;  he  flung 
spadefuls  of  earth  over  the  buried  summons. 

"  What's  amiss  with  you,  lad  ? "  said  the  old 
fellow,  who  had  known  him  from  his  infancy. 

"  Leave  me,"  said  Adone,  with  impatience. 
"  Go  to  the  house  if  you  want  to  drink,  and  to  bait 
your  beast." 

"  Thank  ye,"  said  the  old  man.  "  But  you  will 
go,  won't  you,  Adone?  It  fares  ill  with  those 
who  do  not  go." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  205 

"  Who  told  you  to  say  that?  " 

"  Nobody ;  but  I  have  lived  a  many  years,  and 
I  have  carried  those  printed  papers  a  many  years, 
and  I  know  that  those  who  do  not  go  when  they 
are  called  rue  it.  Their  Honours  don't  let  you 
flout  them." 

"  Their  Honours  be  damned ! "  said  Adone. 
"  Go  to  the  house." 

The  little  old  man,  sorely  frightened,  dropped 
his  head,  and  pulling  his  donkey  by  its  bridle  went 
away  along  the  grass  path  under  the  vines. 

Adone  went  on  delving,  but  his  strong  hands 
shook  with  rage  and  emotion  as  they  grasped  the 
handle  of  the  spade.  He  knew  as  well  as  if  he 
had  been  told  by  a  hundred  people  that  he  was 
called  to  treat  of  the  sale  of  the  Terra  Vergine. 
He  forced  himself  to  go  on  with  his  forenoon's 
labour,  but  the  dear  familiar  earth  swam  and  spun 
before  his  sight. 

"  What?  "  he  muttered  to  it,  "  I  who  love  you 
am  not  your  owner  ?  I  who  was  born  on  you  am 
not  your  lawful  heir?  I  who  have  laboured  on 
you  ever  since  I  was  old  enough  to  use  a  tool  at 
all  am  now  in  my  manhood  to  give  you  up  to 
strangers?  I  will  make  you  run  red  with  blood 
first!" 

It  wanted  then  two  hours  of  noon.  When 
twelve  strokes  sounded  from  across  the  river, 
tolled  slowly  by  the  old  bronze  bell  of  the  church 


206  The  Waters  of  Edera 

tower,  he  went  for  the  noonday  meal  and  rest  to 
the  house. 

The  old  man  was  no  longer  there,  but  Clelia 
Alba  said  to  him : 

"  Dario  says  they  summon  you  to  San  Beda, 
and  that  you  will  not  go  ?  " 

"  He  said  right." 

"  But,  my  son,"  cried  his  mother,  "  go  you 
must!  These  orders  are  not  to  be  shirked. 
Those  who  give  them  have  the  law  behind  them. 
You  know  that." 

"  They  have  the  villainy  of  the  law  behind 
them;  the  only  portion  of  the  law  the  people  are 
ever  suffered  to  see." 

"  But  how  can  you  know  what  it  is  about  if  you 
do  not  go  ?  " 

"  There  is  only  one  thing  which  it  can  be.  One 
thing  that  I  will  not  hear." 

"  You  mean  for  the  river — for  the  land  ?  " 

"What  else?" 

Her  face  grew  as  stern  as  his  own.  "  If  that 
be  so  ...  Still  you  should  go,  my  son; 
you  should  go  to  hold  your  own." 

"  I  will  hold  my  own,"  said  Adone ;  and  in  his 
thoughts  he  added,  "  but  not  by  words." 

"  What  is  the  day  of  the  month  for  which  they 
call  you?  "  asked  his  mother. 

"  The  date  is  passed  by  three  days.  That  is  a 
little  jest  which  authority  often  plays  upon  the 
people." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  207 

They  went  within.  The  meal  was  eaten  in 
silence ;  the  nut-brown  eyes  of  Nerina  looked  wist- 
fully in  their  faces,  but  she  asked  nothing;  she 
guessed  enough. 

Adone  said  nothing  to  Don  Silverio  of  the  sum- 
mons, for  he  knew  that  the  priest  would  counsel 
strongly  his  attendance  in  person  at  San  Beda, 
even  although  the  date  was  already  passed. 

But  Don  Silverio  had  heard  of  it  from  the  post- 
man, who  confided  to  him  the  fears  he  felt  that 
Adone  would  neglect  the  summons,  and  so  get 
into  trouble.  He  saw  at  once  the  error  which 
would  be  committed  if  any  sentence  should  be 
allowed  to  go  by  default  through  absence  of  the 
person  cited  to  appear.  By  such  absence  the  ab- 
sentee discredits  himself;  whatsoever  may  be  the 
justice  of  his  cause,  it  is  prejudiced  at  the  outset. 
But  how  to  persuade  of  this  truth  a  man  so  blind 
with  pain  and  rage  and  so  dogged  in  self-will  as 
Adone  had  become,  Don  Silverio  did  not  see.  He 
shrank  from  renewing  useless  struggles  and  dis- 
putes which  led  to  no  issue.  He  felt  that  Adone 
and  he  would  only  drift  farther  and  farther  apart 
with  every  word  they  spoke. 

The  young  man  saw  this  thing  through  a  red 
mist  of  hatred  and  headstrong  fury;  it  was  im- 
possible for  his  elder  to  admit  that  such  views 
were  wise  or  pardonable,  or  due  to  anything  more 
than  the  heated  visions  evoked  by  a  great  wrong. 

That  evening  at  sunset  he  saw  the  little  girl 


The  Waters  of  Edera 

Nerina  at  the  river.  She  had  led  two  cows  to  the 
water,  and  they  and  she  were  standing  knee  deep 
in  the  stream.  The  western  light  shone  on  their 
soft,  mottled,  dun  hides  and  on  her  ruddy  brown 
hair  and  bright  young  face.  The  bearded  bul- 
rushes were  round  them ;  the  light  played  on  the 
broad  leaves  of  the  docks,  and  the  red  spikes  of 
great  beds  of  willow-herb ;  the  water  reflected  the 
glowing  sky,  and  close  to  its  surface  numbers  of 
newly-come  swallows  whirled  and  dipped  and 
darted,  chasing  gnats,  whilst  near  at  hand  on  a 
spray  a  little  woodlark  sang. 

The  scene  was  fair,  peaceful,  full  of  placid  and 
tender  loveliness. 

"  And  all  this  is  to  be  changed  and  ruined  in 
order  that  some  sons  of  the  mammon  of  unright- 
eousness may  set  up  their  mills  to  grind  their 
gold,"  he  thought  to  himself  as  he  passed  over  the 
stepping-stones  which  at  this  shallow  place  could 
be  crossed  dryfoot. 

"  Where  is  Adone?  "  he  called  to  the  child. 

"  He  is  gone  down  the  river  in  the  punt,  most 
Reverend." 

"And  his  mother?" 

"  Is  at  the  house,  sir." 

Don  Silverio  went  through  the  pastures  under 
the  great  olives.  When  he  reached  the  path  lead- 
ing to  the  house  he  saw  Clelia  Alba  seated  before 
the  doorway  spinning.  The  rose-tree  displayed 


The  Waters  of  Edera  209 

its  first  crimson  buds  above  her  head;  under  the 
eaves  the  swallows  were  busy. 

Clelia  Alba  rose  and  dropped  a  low  courtesy  to 
him,  then  resumed  her  work  at  the  wheel. 

"  You  have  heard,  sir  ?  "  she  said  in  a  low  tone. 
"  They  summon  him  to  San  Beda." 

"  Old  Dario  told  me;  but  Adone  will  not  go?  " 

"  No,  sir ;  he  will  never  go." 

"  He  is  in  error." 

"  I  do  not  know,  sir.  He  is  best  judge  of 
that." 

"  I  fear  he  is  in  no  state  of  mind  to  judge 
calmly  of  anything.  His  absence  will  go  against 
him.  Instead  of  an  amicable  settlement  the  ques- 
tion will  go  to  the  tribunals,  and  if  he  be  unrepre- 
sented there,  he  will  be  condemned  in  contuma- 
cium." 

"  Amicable  settlement  ?  "  repeated  his  mother, 
her  fine  face  animated  and  stern,  and  her  deep, 
dark  eyes  flashing.  "  Can  you,  sir,  dare  you,  sir, 
name  such  a  thing  ?  What  they  would  do  is  rob- 
bery, vile  robbery,  a  thousand  times  worse  than 
aught  the  men  of  night  ever  did  when  they  came 
down  from  the  hills  to  harass  our  homesteads." 

"  I  do  not  say  otherwise ;  but  the  law  is  with 
those  who  harass  you  now.  We  cannot  alter  the 
times,  good  Clelia,  we  must  take  them  as  they  are. 
Your  son  should  go  to  San  Beda  and  urge  his 
rights,  not  with  violence  but  with  firmness  and 


2 1 0  The  Waters  of  Edera 

lucidity;  he  should  also  provide  himself  with  an 
advocate,  or  he  will  be  driven  out  of  his  home  by 
sheer  force,  and  with  some  miserable  sum  as  com- 
pensation." 

Delia  Alba's  brown  skin  grew  ashen  grey,  and 
its  heavy  lines  deepened. 

"  You  mean     .      .      .     that  is  possible  ?" 

"  It  is  more  than  possible.  It  is  certain.  These 
things  always  end  so.  My  poor  dear  friend!  do 
you  not  understand,  even  yet,  that  'nothing  can 
save  your  homestead?  " 

Clelia  Alba  leaned  her  elbows  on  her  knees  and 
bowed  her  face  upon  her  hands.  She  felt  as 
women  of  her  race  had  felt  on  some  fair  morn 
when  they  had  seen  the  skies  redden  with  baleful 
fires,  and  the  glitter  of  steel  corslets  shine  under 
the  foliage,  and  had  heard  the  ripe  corn  crackle 
under  the  horses'  hoofs,  and  had  heard  the  shriek- 
ing children  scream,  "  The  lances  are  coming, 
mother !  Mother !  save  us !  " 

Those  women  had  had  no  power  to  save  home- 
stead or  child;  they  had  seen  the  pikes  twist  in 
the  curling  locks,  and  the  daggers  thrust  in  the 
white  young  throats,  and  the  flames  soar  to 
heaven,  burning  rooftree  and  clearing  stackyard, 
and  they  had  possessed  no  power  to  stay  the  steel 
or  quench  the  torch.  She  was  like  them. 

She  lifted  her  face  up  to  the  light. 

"  He  will  kill  them." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  211 

"  He  may  kill  one  man — two  men — he  will  have 
blood  on  his  hands.  What  will  that  serve?  I 
have  told  you  again  and  again.  This  thing  is  in- 
evitable— frightful,  but  inevitable,  like  war.  In 
war  do  not  millions  of  innocent  and  helpless 
creatures  suffer  through  no  fault  of  their  own, 
no  cause  of  their  own,  on  account  of  some  king's 
caprice  or  statesman's  blunder?  You  are  just 
such  victims  here.  Nothing  will  preserve  to  you 
the  Terra  Vergine.  My  dear  old  friend,  have 
courage." 

"  I  cannot  believe  it,  sir ;  I  cannot  credit  it. 
The  land  is  ours ;  this  little  bit  of  the  good  and 
solid  earth  is  ours;  God  will  not  let  us  be  robbed 
of  it." 

"  My  friend !  no  miracles  are  wrought  now.  I 
have  told  you  again  and  again  and  again  you  must 
lose  this  place." 

"  I  will  not  believe  it !  " 

"  Alas !  I  pray  that  you  may  not  be  forced  to 
believe ;  but  I  know  that  I  pray  in  vain.  Tell  me, 
you  are  certain  that  Adone  will  not  answer  that 
summons  ?  " 

"  I  am  certain." 

"  He  is  mad." 

"  No,  sir,  he  is  not  mad.  No  more  than  I,  his 
mother.  We  have  faith  in  heaven." 

Don  Silverio  was  silent.  It  was  not  for  him 
to  tell  them  that  such  faith  was  a  feeble  staff. 


2 1 2  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  I  must  not  tarry,  he  said,  and  rose.  "  The 
night  is  near  at  hand.  Tell  your  son  what  I  have 
said.  My  dear  friend,  I  would  almost  as  soon 
stab  you  in  the  throat  as  say  these  things  to  you ; 
but  as  you  value  your  boy's  sanity  and  safety 
make  him  realise  this  fact,  which  you  and  he  deny : 
the  law  will  take  your  home  from  you,  as  it  will 
take  the  river  from  the  province." 

"  No,  sir !  "  said  Clelia  Alba  fiercely.  "  No,  no, 
no !  There  is  a  God  above  us !  " 

Don  Silverio  bade  her  sadly  farewell,  and  in- 
sisted no  more.  He  went  through  the  odorous 
grasslands  where  the  primrose  and  wild  hyacinth 
grew  so  thickly  and  the  olive  branches  were  al- 
ready laden  with  purpling  berries,  and  his  soul 
was  uneasy,  seeing  how  closed  is  the  mind  of  the 
peasant  to  argument  or  to  persuasion.  Often  had 
he  seen  a  poor  beetle  pushing  its  ball  of  dirt  up 
the  side  of  a  sandhill  only  to  fall  back  and  begin 
again  and  again  fall;  for  truth  to  endeavour  to 
penetrate  the  brain  of  the  rustic  is  as  hard  as  for 
the  beetle  to  climb  the  sand.  He  was  disinclined 
to  seek  the  discomfiture  of  another  useless  argu- 
ment, but  neither  could  he  be  content  in  his  con- 
science to  let  this  matter  wholly  alone. 

Long  and  dreary  as  the  journey  was  to  San 
Beda,  he  undertook  it  again,  saying  nothing  to 
any  one  of  his  purpose.  He  hoped  to  be  able  be- 
fore the  syndic  to  put  Adone's  contumacy  in  a 
pardonable  light,  and  perhaps  to  plead  his  cause 


The  Waters  of  Edera  2 1 3 

better  than  the  boy  could  plead  it  for  himself.  To 
Don  Silverio  he  always  seemed  a  boy  still,  and 
therefore  excusable  in  all  his  violences  and  ex- 
travagances. 

The  day  was  fine  and  cool,  and  walking  was 
easier  and  less  exhausting  than  it  had  been  at  the 
season  of  his  first  visit;  moreover,  his  journey  to 
Rome  had  braced  his  nerves  and  sinews  to  exer- 
tion, and  restored  to  him  the  energy  and  self- 
possession  which  the  long,  tedious,  monotonous 
years  of  solitude  in  Ruscino  had  weakened. 
There  was  a  buoyant  wind  coming  from  the  sea 
with  rain  in  its  track,  and  a  deep  blue  sky  with 
grand  clouds  drifting  past  the  ultramarine  hues  of 
the  Abruzzi  range.  The  bare  brown  rocks  grew 
dark  as  bronze,  and  the  forest-clothed  hills  were 
almost  black  in  the  shadows  as  the  clustered 
towers  and  roofs  of  the  little  city  came  in  sight. 
He  went,  fatigued  as  he  was,  straight  to  the  old 
episcopal  palace,  which  was  now  used  as  the 
municipality,  without  even  shaking  the  dust  off 
his  feet. 

"  Say  that  I  come  for  the  affair  of  Adone 
Alba,"  he  said  to  the  first  persons  he  saw  in  the 
ante-room  on  the  first  floor.  In  the  little  ecclesi- 
astical town  his  calling  commanded  respect. 
They  begged  him  to  sit  down  and  rest,  and  in  a 
few  minutes  returned  to  say  that  the  most  illustri- 
ous the  Count  Corradini  would  receive  him  at 
once  in  his  private  room;  it  was  a  day  of  general 


214  The  Waters  of  Edera 

council,  but  the  council  would  not  meet  for  an 
hour.  The  syndic  was  a  tall,  spare,  frail  man 
with  a  patrician's  face  and  an  affable  manner. 
He  expressed  himself  in  courteous  terms  as  flat- 
tered by  the  visit  of  the  Vicar  of  Ruscino,  and 
inquired  if  in  any  way  he  could  be  of  the  slightest 
service. 

"  Of  the  very  greatest,  your  Excellency,"  said 
Don  Silverio.  "  I  have  ventured  to  come  hither 
on  behalf  of  a  young  parishioner  of  mine,  Adone 
Alba,  who,  having  received  the  summons  of  your 
Excellency  only  yesterday,  may,  I  trust,  be  ex- 
cused for  not  having  obeyed  it  on  the  date  named. 
He  is  unable  to  come  to-day.  May  I  offer  my- 
self for  his  substitute  as  amicus  curiae?" 

"  Certainly,  certainly,"  said  Corradini,  relieved 
to  meet  an  educated  man  instead  of  the  boor  he 
had  expected.  "If  the  summons  were  delayed 
by  any  fault  of  my  officials,  the  delay  must  be  in- 
quired into.  Meanwhile,  most  reverend,  have 
you  instructions  to  conclude  the  affair  ?  " 

"  As  yet,  I  venture  to  remind  your  Excellency, 
we  do  not  even  know  what  is  the  affair  of  which 
you  speak." 

"  Oh  no ;  quite  true.  The  matter  is  the  sale  of 
the  land  known  under  the  title  of  the  Terra 
Vergine." 

"  Thank  Heaven  I  am  here,  and  not  Adone," 
thought  Don  Silverio. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  2 1 5 

Aloud  he  answered,  "What  sale?  The  pro- 
prietor has  heard  of  none." 

"  He  must  have  heard.  It  can  be  no  news  to 
you  that  the  works  about  to  be  made  upon  the 
river  Edera  will  necessitate  the  purchase  of  the 
land  known  as  the  Terra  Vergine." 

Here  the  syndic  put  on  gold  spectacles,  drew 
towards  him  a  black  portfolio  filled  by  plans  and 
papers,  and  began  to  move  them  about,  mut- 
tering, as  he  searched,  little  scraps  of  phrases  out 
of  each  of  them.  At  last  he  turned  over  the 
sheets  which  concerned  the  land  of  the  Alba. 

"  Terra  Vergine — Commune  of  Ruscino — 
owners  Alba  from  1620 — family  of  good  report 
— regular  taxpayers — sixty  hectares — land  pro- 
ductive; value — just  so— humph,  humph, 
humph!" 

Then  he  laid  down  the  documents  and  looked 
at  Don  Silverio  from  over  his  spectacles. 

"  I  conclude,  most  reverend,  that  you  come 
empowered  by  this  young  man  to  treat  with  us  ?  " 

"  I  venture,  sir,"  replied  Don  Silverio  respect- 
fully, "  to  remind  you  again  that  it  is  impossible 
I  should  be  so  empowered,  since  Adone  Alba  was 
ignorant  of  the  reason  for  which  he  was  sum- 
moned here." 

Corradini  shuffled  his  documents  nervously 
with  some  irritation. 


2 1 6  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  This  conference,  then,  is  mere  waste  of  time? 
I  hold  council  to-day " 

"  Pardon  me,  your  Excellency,"  said  Don 
Silverio  blandly.  "  It  will  not  be  waste  of  time 
if  you  will  allow  me  to  lay  before  you  certain 
facts,  and,  first,  to  ask  you  one  question:  Who 
is,  or  are,  the  buyer  or  buyers  of  this  land  ?  " 

The  question  was  evidently  unwelcome  to  the 
syndic;  it  was  direct,  which  every  Italian  con- 
siders ill-bred,  and  it  was  awkward  to  answer. 
He  was  troubled  for  personal  reasons,  and  the 
calm  and  searching  gaze  of  the  priest's  dark  eyes 
embarrassed  him.  After  all,  he  thought,  it  would 
have  been  better  to  deal  with  the  boor  himself. 

"Why  do  you  ask  that?"  he  said  irritably. 
"  You  are  aware  that  the  National  Society  for  the 
Improvement  of  Land  and  the  foreign  company 
of  the  Teramo-Tronto  Electric  Railway  combine 
in  these  projected  works?  " 

"  To  which  of  these  two  societies,  then,  is 
Adone  Alba,  or  am  I,  as  his  locum  tenens,  to 
address  ourselves?  " 

"  To  neither.     This  commune  deals  with  you." 

"Why?" 

Count  Corradini  took  off  his  glasses,  put  them 
on  again,,  shifted  the  papers  and  plans  in  his  im- 
posing portfolio. 

"  May  I  ask  again — why  ?  "  said  Don  Silverio 
in  the  gentlest  tones  of  his  beautiful  voice. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  2 1 7 

"Because,  because,"  answered  the  syndic  irri- 
tably, "  because  the  whole  affair  is  in  treaty  be- 
tween our  delegates  and  the  companies.  Public 
societies  do  not  deal  with  private  individuals  di- 
rectly, but  by  proxy." 

"  Pardon  my  ignorance,"  said  Don  Silverio, 
"  but  why  does  the  commune  desire  to  substitute 
itself  for  the  owner  ?  " 

"  It  is  usual." 

"Ah!     It  is  usual." 

Corradini  did  not  like  the  repetition  of  his 
phrase,  which  would  not  perhaps  bear  very  close 
examination.  He  looked  at  his  watch. 

"  Excuse  me,  Reverend  Father,  but  time 
presses." 

"  Allow  me  to  crave  of  your  bounty  a  little 
more  time,  nevertheless.  I  am  not  habituated  to 
business,  but  I  believe,  if  I  understand  your  wor- 
shipful self  aright,  the  commune  contemplates 
purchasing  from  the  individuals  with  power  and 
intent  to  sell  to  the  companies." 

What  an  unmannerly  ecclesiastic,  thought  Cor- 
radini; for  indeed,  put  thus  bluntly  and  crudely, 
what  the  commune,  as  represented  by  himself,  was 
doing  did  not  look  as  entirely  correct  as  could  be 
desired. 

"  I  was  in  Rome,  most  illustrious,"  said  Don 
Silverio,  "  in  connection  with  this  matter  some 
months  ago." 


2 1 8  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"In  Rome?" 

To  hear  this  was  unpleasant  to  the  syndic;  it 
had  never  occurred  to  him  that  his  rural,  illiterate, 
and  sparsely  populated  district  would  have  con- 
tained any  person  educated  enough  to  think  of  in- 
quiring in  Rome  about  this  local  matter. 

"  To  Rome!     Why  did  you  go  to  Rome?  " 

"  To  acquire  information  concerning  this 
scheme." 

"  You  are  an  owner  of  land  ?  " 

"  No  sir.     I  am  a  poor,  very  poor,  priest." 

"  It  cannot  concern  you,  then." 

"  It  concerns  my  people.  Nothing  which  con- 
cerns them  is  alien  to  me." 

"  Humph,  humph !  Most  proper,  most  praise- 
worthy. But  we  have  no  time  for  generalities. 
You  came  to  treat  of  the  Terra  Vergine  ?  " 

"  Pardon  me,  sir;  I  came  to  hear  why  you  sum- 
moned Adone  Alba,  one  of  my  flock." 

"  Could  he  not  have  come  himself?  It  had 
been  but  his  duty." 

"  He  could  not,  sir ;  and,  to  say  truth,  he  would 
not.  He  does  not  intend  to  sell  his  land." 

"What!" 

Corradini  half  rose  from  his  chair,  leaning  both 
hands  on  the  table,  and  staring  through  his  glasses 
across  the  mass  of  portfolios  and  papers  at  the 
priest. 

"  He  will  have  no  choice  allowed  him,"  he  said 


The  Waters  of  Edera  219 

with  great  anger.  "  To  the  interests  of  the  State 
all  minor  interests  must  bend.  What!  a  mere 
peasant  stand  in  the  way  of  a  great  enterprise?  " 

"  You  intend  expropriation  then  ?  " 

The  voice  of  Don  Silverio  was  very  calm  and 
sweet,  but  his  countenance  was  stern. 

Corradini  was  irritated  beyond  measure.  He 
did  not  desire  to  play  that  great  card  so  early  in 
the  game. 

"  I  do  not  say  that,"  he  muttered.  "  There 
must  be  parliamentary  sanction  for  any  forced 
sale.  I  spoke  in  general  terms.  Private  interest 
must  cede  to  public." 

"  There  is  parliamentary  sanction  already  given 
to  the  project  for  the  Valley  of  Edera,"  said  Don 
Silverio,  "  expropriation  included." 

Count  Corradini  threw  himself  back  in  his 
chair  with  an  action  expressive  at  once  of  wrath 
and  of  impotence.  He  had  an  irritating  sense 
that  this  priest  was  master  of  the  position,  and 
knew  much  more  than  he  said.  In  reality  Don 
Silverio  knew  very  little,  but  he  had  skill  and  tact 
enough  to  give  a  contrary  impression  to  his  audi- 
tor. He  followed  up  his  advantage. 

"  Expropriation  is  to  be  permitted  to  enforce 
sales  on  recalcitrant  landowners,"  he  continued. 
"  But  that  measure,  even  though  conceded  in 
theory,  will  take  time  to  translate  into  practice.  I 
fear,  sir,  that  if  it  be  ever  put  into  execution  we 


220  The  Waters  of  Edera 

shall  have  trouble  in  your  commune.  Your  coun- 
cil has  been  over  hasty  in  allying  itself  with  these 
speculators.  You  and  they  have  not  taken  into 
account  the  immense  injury  which  will  be  done  to 
the  valley  and  to  my  own  village  or  town,  call  it 
as  you  will,  of  Ruscino.  The  people  are  quiet, 
patient,  meek,  but  they  will  not  be  so  if  they  are 
robbed  of  the  water  of  the  Edera.  It  is  the 
source  of  all  the  little — the  very  little — good 
which  comes  to  them.  So  it  is  with  Adone  Alba. 
He  has  been  God-fearing,  law-abiding,  a  good  son, 
excellent  in  all  relations;  but  he  will  not  recog- 
nize as  law  the  seizure  of  his  land.  Sir,  you  are 
the  elected  chief  of  this  district;  all  these  people 
look  to  you  for  support  in  their  emergency. 
What  are  these  foreign  speculators  to  you  that 
you  should  side  with  them?  You  say  this  com- 
mune will  purchase  from  its  peasant  proprietors 
in  the  interests  of  these  foreigners.  Was  it  to 
do  this  that  they  elected  you?  Why  should  the 
interests  of  the  foreigners  be  upheld  by  you  to 
the  injury  of  those  of  your  own  people?  Speak- 
ing for  my  own  parish,  I  can  affirm  to  you  that, 
simple  souls  as  they  are,  poor  in  the  extreme,  and 
resigned  to  poverty,  you  will  have  trouble  with 
them  all  if  you  take  it  on  you  to  enforce  the 
usurpation  of  the  Edera  water." 

Count  Corradini,  still  leaning  back  in  his  large 
leathern  chair,  listened  as  if  he  were  hypnotised; 


The  Waters  of  Edera  221 

he  was  astounded,  offended,  enraged,  but  he  was 
fascinated  by  the  low,  rich,  harmonious  modula- 
tions of  the  voice  which  addressed  him,  and  by 
the  sense  of  mastery  which  the  priest  conveyed 
without  by  a  single  word  asserting  it. 

"  You  would  threaten  me  with  public  dis- 
order ?  "  he  said  feebly,  and  with  consciousness 
of  feebleness. 

"  No,  sir;  I  would  adjure  you,  in  God's  name, 
not  to  provoke  it." 

"  It  does  not  rest  with  me." 

He  raised  himself  in  his  chair;  his  slender, 
aristocratic  hands  played  nervously  with  the 
strings  of  the  portfolio,  his  eyelids  flickered,  and 
his  eyes  avoided  those  of  his  visitor. 

"  I  have  no  voice  in  this  matter.  You  mis- 
take." 

"  Surely  your  Excellency  speaks  with  the  voice 
of  all  your  electors  ?  " 

"  Of  my  administrative  council,  then?  But 
they  are  all  in  favour  of  the  project;  so  is  his  Ex- 
cellency the  Prefect,  so  is  the  Deputy,  so  is  the 
Government.  Can  I  take  upon  myself  in  my  own 
slender  personality  to  oppose  these?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,  because  you  are  the  mouthpiece  of 
those  who  cannot  speak  for  themselves." 

"  Euh !  Euh !  That  may  be  true  in  a  sense. 
But  you  mistake;  my  authority  is  most  limited. 
I  have  but  two  votes  in  Council.  I  am  as  wholly 


222  The  Waters  of  Eder* 

convinced  as  you  can  be  that  some  will  suffer  for 
the  general  good.  The  individual  is  crushed  by 
the  crowd  in  these  days.  We  are  in  a  period  of 
immense  and  febrile  development;  of  wholly  un- 
foreseen expansion;  we  are  surrounded  by  mira- 
cles of  science;  we  are  witnesses  of  an  in- 
crease of  intelligence  which  will  lead  to  results 
whereof  no  living  man  can  dream ;  civilisation  in 
its  vast  and  ineffable  benevolence  sometimes 
wounds,  even  as  the  light  and  heat  of  the  blessed 
sun—" 

"  Pardon  me,  sir,"  said  Don  Silverio,  "  at  any 
other  moment  it  would  be  my  dearest  privilege 
to  listen  to  your  eloquence.  But  time  passes.  I 
came  here  on  a  practical  errand.  I  desire  to  take 
back  some  definite  answer  to  Adone  and  Clelia 
Alba.  Am  I  to  understand  from  you  that  the 
municipality,  on  behalf  of  these  foreign  com- 
panies, desires  to  purchase  his  land,  and  even  in- 
sists upon  its  right  to  do  so  ?  " 

The  syndic  accustomed  to  seek  shelter  from  all 
plain  speaking  in  the  cover  of  flowery  periods 
such  as  these  in  which  he  had  been  arrested,  was 
driven  from  his  usual  refuge.  He  could  not  re- 
sume the  noble  and  enlightened  discourse  which 
had  been  thus  recklessly  cut  in  two.  He  tied  the 
strings  of  the  portfolio  into  a  bow,  and  undid 
them,  and  tied  them  again. 

"  I  have  received  you,  sir,  ex  officio,"  he  re- 


The  Waters  of  Edera 

plied  after  a  long  silence.  "  You  address  me  as  if 
I  possessed  some  special  individual  power.  I  have 
none.  I  am  but  the  mouthpiece,  the  representa- 
tive of  my  administrative  council.  You,  a  learned 
ecclesiastic,  cannot  want  to  be  taught  what  are 
the  functions  of  a  syndic." 

"  I  am  to  understand  then  that  I  must  address 
myself  on  behalf  of  my  people  to  the  Prefect?  " 

Corradini  was  silent.  The  last  thing  he  desired 
was  for  this  importunate  priest  to  see  the  Pre- 
fect. 

"  I  must  go  into  council  at  once,"  he  said,  again 
looking  at  his  watch.  "  Could  you  return  ?  Are 
you  remaining  here  ?  " 

"  Some  hours,  sir." 

"  Will  you  dine  with  me  at  my  house  at  three? 
You  will  give  me  much  pleasure,  and  the  Countess 
Corradini  will  be  charmed." 

"  I  am  grateful  for  so  much  offered  honour,  but 
I  have  promised  to  make  my  noonday  meal  with 
an  old  friend,  the  superior  of  the  Cistercians." 

"  An  excellent,  a  holy  person,"  said  Corradini, 
with  a  bend  of  his  head.  "  Be  at  my  house,  rev- 
erend sir,  at  five  of  the  clock.  I  shall  then  have 
spoken  with  the  assessors  of  your  errand,  and  it 
will  be  dealt  with  probably  in  council." 

Don  Silverio  made  a  low  bow,  and  left  him 
free  to  go  to  his  awaiting  councillors,  who  were 
already  gathered  round  a  long  table  covered  by 


224  The  Waters  of  Edera 

green  cloth,  in  a  vaulted  and  stately  chamber,  with 
frescoes  losing  their  colour  on  its  walls,  and  sto- 
ries from  Greek  mythology  carved  on  its  oaken 
doors  and  stone  cornices. 

"  Pray  excuse  me,  gentlemen,"  said  the  courtly 
mayor  to  his  assessors,  taking  his  seat  on  an  old 
walnut-wood  throne  at  the  head  of  the  table.  "  I 
have  been  detained  by  this  matter  of  the  Val  d' 
Edera.  I  fear  the  people  of  that  valley  will  show 
an  ungrateful  and  refractory  temper.  How  hard 
it  is  to  persuade  the  ignorant  where  their  true 
interests  lie !  But  let  us  to  business." 

"  It  will  be  a  hard  matter,"  said  the  Prior  to 
Don  Silverio  as  they  walked  together  in  the  little 
burial-ground  of  the  monastery  between  its  lines 
of  rose-trees  and  its  lines  of  crosses,  after  the 
frugal  noonday  meal  had  been  eaten  in  the  refec- 
tory. "  It  will  be  a  hard  matter.  You  will  fail, 
I  fear.  The  municipalities  here  smell  money. 
That  is  enough  to  make  them  welcome  the  inva- 
sion. What  can  you  do  against  the  force  of 
gold?" 

"  Would  it  avail  anything  to  see  the  Prefect?  " 

"  Nothing.     He  is  cousin  to  the  Minister  of 

Agriculture,  whose  brother  is  chairman  of  the  Te- 

ramo-Tronto  Company.   We  are  governed  solely 

by  what  the  French  call  tripotage." 

"  What  character  does  this  syndic  bear  ?  " 

"  A  good  one.    He  is  blameless  in  his  domestic 


The  Waters  of  Edera  225 

relations,  an  indulgent  landlord,  a  gentleman,  re- 
spectful of  religion,  assiduous  in  his  duties;  but 
he  is  in  debt;  his  large  estates  produce  little;  he 
has  no  other  means.  I  would  not  take  upon  me 
to  say  that  he  would  be  above  a  bribe." 

At  five  of  the  clock,  as  the  Syndic  had  told  him 
to  do,  Don  Silverio  presented  himself  at  the  Pa- 
lazzo Corradini.  He  was  shown  with  much  def- 
erence by  an  old  liveried  servant  into  a  fine  apart- 
ment with  marble  busts  in  niches  in  the  walls 
and  antique  bookcases  of  oak,  and  door-hangings 
of  Tuscan  tapestry.  The  air  of  the  place  was  cold, 
and  had  the  scent  of  a  tomb.  It  was  barely  illu- 
mined by  two  bronze  lamps  in  which  unshaded  oil 
wicks  burned.  Corradini  joined  him  there  in  five 
minutes'  time,  and  welcomed  him  to  the  house 
with  grace  and  warmth  of  courtesy. 

"What  does  he  want  of  me?"  thought  Don 
Silverio,  who  had  not  been  often  met  in  life  by 
such  sweet  phrases.  "  Does  he  want  me  to  be 
blind?" 

"  Dear  and  reverend  sir,"  said  the  mayor,  plac- 
ing himself  with  his  back  to  the  brass  lamps,  "  tell 
me  fully  about  this  youth  whom  you  protect,  who 
will  not  sell  the  Terra  Vergine.  Here  we  can 
speak  at  our  ease;  yonder  at  the  municipality, 
there  may  be  always  some  eavesdropper." 

"  Most  worshipful,  what  I  said  is  matter  well 
known  to  the  whole  countryside;  all  the  valley 


226  The  Waters  of  Edera 

can  bear  witness  to  its  truth,"  replied  Don  Sil- 
verio,  and  he  proceeded  to  set  forth  all  that  he 
knew  of  Adone  and  Clelia  Alba,  and  of  their  great 
love  for  their  lands ;  he  only  did  not  mention  what 
he  believed  to  be  Adone's  descent,  because  he 
feared  that  it  might  sound  fantastical,  or  pre- 
sumptuous. Nearly  three  hundred  years  of  peas- 
ant ownership  and  residence  were  surely  titles 
enough  for  consideration. 

"  If  land  owned  thus,  and  tilled  thus  by  one 
family,  can  be  taken  away  from  that  family  by 
Act  of  Parliament  to  please  the  greedy  schemes 
of  strangers,  why  preserve  the  eighth  command- 
ment in  the  Decalogue?  It  becomes  absurd. 
There  cannot  be  a  more  absolute  ownership  than 
this  of  the  Alba  to  the  farm  they  live  on  and  cul- 
tivate. So  long  as  there  is  any  distinction  at  all 
between  meum  et  tunm,  how  can  its  violent  seizure 
be  by  any  possibility  defended  ?  " 

"  There  need  be  no  violent  seizure,"  said  Cor- 
radini.  "  The  young  man  will  be  offered  a  good 
price ;  even,  since  you  are  interested  in  him,  a  high 
price." 

"  But  he  will  take  no  price — no  price  if  he  were 
paid  millions;  they  would  not  compensate  him 
for  his  loss." 

"  He  must  be  a  very  singular  young  man." 

"  His  character  is  singular,  no  doubt,  in  an  age 
in  which  money  is  esteemed  the  sole  goal  of  ex- 


The  Waters  of  Edera  227 

istence,  and  discontent  constitutes  philosophy. 
Adone  Alba  wants  nothing  but  what  he  has;  he 
only  asks  to  be  left  alone." 

"  It  is  difficult  to  be  left  alone  in  a  world  full  of 
other  people!  If  your  hero  want  a  Thebaid  he 
can  go  and  buy  one  in  La  Plata  or  the  Argentine 
with  the  price  we  shall  give  for  his  land." 

"  We  ?  "  repeated  Don  Silverio  with  significant 
emphasis. 

Corradini  reddened  a  little.  "  I  use  the  word 
because  I  am  greatly  interested  in  the  success  of 
this  enterprise,  being  convinced  of  its  general  util- 
ity to  the  province.  Being  cognisant  as  I  am  of 
the  neighbourhood,  I  hoped  I  could  prevent  some 
friction." 

"  The  shares  are,  I  believe,  already  on  the  mar- 
ket?" 

It  was  a  harmless  remark,  yet  it  was  a  disa- 
greeable one  to  the  Syndic  of  San  Beda. 

"  What  would  be  the  selling  price  of  the  Terra 
Vergine,"  he  said  abruptly?  "It  is  valued  at 
twelve  thousand  francs." 

"  It  is  useless  to  discuss  its  price,"  replied  Don 
Silverio,  "  and  the  question  is  much  wider  than 
the  limits  of  the  Terra  Vergine.  In  one  word, 
is  the  whole  of  the  Val  d'Edera  to  be  ruined  be- 
cause a  Minister  has  a  relation  who  desires  to 
create  an  unnecessary  railway?  " 

"  Ruined  is  a  large  word.    These  constructions 


228  The  Waters  of  Edera 

appear  to  all,  except  primitive  and  ignorant  peo- 
ple, to  be  improvements,  acquisitions,  benefits.  In 
our  province  we  are  so  aloof  from  all  movement, 
so  remote  in  our  seclusion,  so  .moss-grown  in  our 
antiquity,  so  wedded  to  the  past,  to  old  customs, 
old  habits,  old  ways  of  act  and  thought,  that  the 
modern  world  shocks  us  as  impious,  odious,  and 
intolerable." 

"  Sir,"  said  Don  Silverio  with  his  most  caustic 
smile,  "  if  you  are  here  to  sing  the  praises  of 
modernity,  allow  me  to  withdraw  from  the  duet. 
I  venture  to  ask  you,  as  I  asked  you  this  morning, 
one  plain  question.  To  whom  is  Adone  Alba,  to 
whom  are  my  people  of  Ruscino,  to  appeal  against 
this  sequestration  ?  " 

"  To  no  one.  The  Prefect  approves ;  the  Min- 
ister approves;  the  local  deputies  approve;  I  and 
my  municipal  and  provincial  councils  approve; 
Parliament  has  approved  and  authorised.  Who 
remain  opposed?  A  few  small  landowners  and 
a  mob  of  poor  persons  living  in  your  village  of 
Ruscino  and  in  similar  places." 

"  Who  can  create  grave  disorders  and  will  do 
so." 

"  Disorders,  even  insurrections,  do  not  greatly 
alarm  authority  nowadays;  they  are  easily  re- 
pressed since  the  invention  of  quick-firing  guns. 
The  army  is  always  on  the  side  of  order." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  229 

Don  Silverio  rose. 

"  Most  honourable  Corradini !  your  views  and 
mine  are  so  far  asunder  that  no  amount  of  dis- 
cussion can  assimilate  them.  Allow  me  to  salute 
you." 

"  Wait  one  instant,  reverence,"  said  the  syndic. 
"  May  I  ask  how  it  is  that  an  ecclesiastic  of  your 
appearance  and  your  intellect  can  have  been  buried 
so  long  in  such  an  owls'  nest  as  Ruscino  ?  " 

"  Sir,"  replied  Don  Silverio  very  coldly,  "  ask 
my  superiors;  I  am  but  one  of  the  least  of  the 
servants  of  the  Church." 

"  You  might  be  one  of  her  greatest  servants,  if 
influence — " 

"  I  abhor  the  word  influence.  It  means  a  bribe 
too  subtle  to  be  punished,  too  gilded  to  alarm." 

"  Nay,  sometimes  it  is  but  a  word  in  season,  a 
pressure  in  the  right  place." 

"  It  means  that  which  cannot  serve  the  poor 
man  without  degrading  him." 

"  But — but — if  as  a  reward  for  duty,  advance- 
ment came  to  you  ?  " 

"  I  fail  to  understand." 

"  Let  me  speak  frankly.  With  your  superiority 
to  them  you  must  easily  rule  the  embryo  rioters  of 
the  Val  d'Edera.  If,  to  your  efforts  it  should  be 
owing  that  the  population  remain  quiet,  and  that 
this  Adone  Alba  and  others  in  a  similar  position. 


230  The  Waters  of  Edera 

come  to  me  in  an  orderly  manner  and  a  pliant 
spirit,  I  will  engage  that  this  service  to  us  on 
your  part  shall  not  be  forgotten." 

He  paused;  but  Don  Silverio  did  not  reply. 

"It  is  lamentable  and  unjust,"  continued  the 
mayor,  "  that  one  of  your  evident  mental  pow- 
ers and  capacity  for  higher  place  should  be  wast- 
ing your  years  and  wasting  your  mind  in  a 
miserable  solitude  like  Ruscino.  If  you  will  aid 
us  to  a  pacific  cession  of  the  Val  d'  Edera  I  will 
take  upon  myself  to  promise  that  your  translation 
to  a  higher  office  shall  be  favoured  by  the  Gov- 
ernment  " 

He  paused  again,  for  he  did  not  see  upon  Don 
Sil verio's  countenance  that  flattered  and  rejoiced 
expression  which  he  expected;  there  was  even 
upon  it  a  look  of  scorn.  He  regretted  that  he  had 
said  so  much. 

"  I  thank  your  Excellency  for  so  benevolent  an 
interest  in  my  poor  personality,"  said  Don  Sil- 
verio. "  But  with  the  King's  government  I  have 
nothing  to  do.  I  am  content  in  the  place  whereto 
I  have  been  called,  and  have  no  disposition  to  as- 
sist the  speculations  of  foreign  companies.  I  have 
the  honour  to  bid  your  Excellency  good  evening." 

He  bowed  low,  and  backed  out  of  the  apart- 
ment this  time.  Count  Corradini  did  not  en- 
deavour to  detain  him. 

When  he  got  out  into  the  air  the  strong  moun- 


The  Waters  of  Edera  231 

tain  wind  was  blowing  roughly  down  the  steep 
and  narrow  street.  He  felt  it  with  pleasure  smite 
his  cheeks  and  brows. 

"  Truly  only  from  nature  can  we  find  strength 
and  health,"  he  murmured.  "  In  the  houses  of 
men  there  are  but  fever  and  corruption,  and  un- 
cleanliness." 


XIV 

To  neglect  no  possible  chance,  he  resolved  to 
see  the  Prefect,  if  the  Prefect  consented  to 
see  him.  This  great  official  dwelt  in  a  seaport 
city,  whence  he  ruled  the  province,  for  such  a 
period  at  least  as  his  star  should  be  in  the  ascend- 
ant, that  is,  whilst  his  political  group  should  be 
in  power.  It  was  scarcely  likely  that  a  govern- 
ment official  would  be  accessible  to  any  arguments 
which  a  poor  country  priest  could  bring  forward 
against  a  government  project.  Still,  he  resolved 
to  make  the  effort,  for  at  the  Prefect's  name  ap- 
prehension, keen  and  quaking,  had  leapt  into 
Count  Corradini's  faded  eyes. 

From  San  Beda  to  the  seaport  city  there 
stretched  some  forty  miles  of  distance;  the  first 
part  a  descent  down  the  spurs  of  the  Apennines 
the  latter  half  through  level  sandy  country,  with 
pine  woods  here  and  there.  The  first  half  he 
covered  on  foot,  the  second  by  the  parliamentary 
train,  which  drew  its  long  black  line,  snake-like 
and  slow,  through  the  dunes  and  the  stagnant 
waters.  He  had  but  a  few  francs  in  his  waist- 
band, and  could  ill  afford  to  expend  those. 

When  he  reached  his  destination  it  was  even- 
233 


The  Waters  of  Edera  233 

ing1 ;  too  late  for  him  to  present  himself  at  the  Pre- 
fecture with  any  chance  of  admittance.  The  Prior 
at  San  Beda  had  given  him  a  letter  to  the  vicar 
of  the  church  of  Sant  Anselmo  in  the  city,  and 
by  this  gentleman  he  was  warmly  received  and 
willingly  lodged  for  the  night. 

"  A  government  project — a  project  approved 
by  ministers  and  deputies  ?  "  said  his  host  on  hear- 
ing what  was  the  errand  on  which  he  came  there. 
"  As  well,  my  brother,  might  you  assail  the  Gran 
Sasse  d'ltalia !  There  must  be  money  in  it,  much 
money,  for  our  Conscript  Fathers." 

"  I  suppose  so,"  said  Don  Silverio,  "  but  I  can- 
not see  where  it  is  to  come  from." 

"  From  the  pockets  of  the  taxpayers,  my 
friend ! "  replied  the  incumbent  of  Sant  Anselmo, 
with  a  smile  as  of  a  man  who  knows  the  world 
he  lives  in.  "  The  country  is  honeycombed  by 
enterprises  undertaken  solely  to  this  end — to  pass 
the  money  which  rusts  in  the  pockets  of  fools 
into  those  of  wise  men  who  know  how  to  make 
it  run  about  and  multiply.  In  what  other  scope 
are  all  our  betterments,  our  hygiene,  our  useless 
railway  lines,  our  monstrous  new  streets,  all  our 
modernisation,  put  in  the  cauldron  and  kept  boil- 
ing like  a  witch's  supper  ?  " 

"  I  know,  I  know,"  said  Don  Silverio  wearily. 
"  The  whole  land  is  overrun  by  affaristi,  like  red 
ants." 


234  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"Do  not  slander  the  ants!"  replied  his  host; 
"  I  would  not  offend  the  name  of  any  honest, 
hard-working,  little  insect  by  giving  it  to  the  men 
through  whom  this  country  is  eaten  up  by  selfish 
avarice  and  unscrupulous  speculation!  But  tell 
me,  what  do  you  hope  for  from  our  revered  Pre- 
fect?" 

"  I  hope  nothing,  but  I  wish  to  leave  no  stone 
unturned.  Tell  me  of  him." 

"  Of  his  Excellency,  Giovacchino  Gallo,  senator 
and  deputy  and  what  not  ?  There  is  much  to  tell, 
though  there  is  nothing  which  could  not  be  also 
told  of  many  another  gentleman  in  high  place.  It 
is  the  usual  story ;  the  supple  spine,  the  sharp  eye, 
the  greased  foot.  He  was  a  young  lawyer,  useful 
to  deputies.  He  married  a  lovely  woman  whom 
a  prince  had  admired  beyond  him.  He  asked  no 
questions;  her  dower  was  large.  To  do  him  jus- 
tice, he  has  always  behaved  very  well  to  her.  He 
entered  Parliament  early,  and  there  was  useful 
also,  to  existing  institutions.  He  was  instrumen- 
tal in  carrying  many  railway  and  canal  bills 
through  the  chamber.  He  has  been  always  suc- 
cessful in  his  undertakings,  and  he  knows  that 
nothing  succeeds  like  success.  I  am  told  that  he 
and  his  wife  are  persone  gratissime  at  the  Quiri- 
nale,  and  that  her  jewels  are  extremely  fine.  When 
he  was  named  Senator  two  years  ago  the  Press, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  235 

especially  the  Press  of  the  Right,  saluted  his  nom- 
ination as  strengthening  the  Senate  by  the  acces- 
sion to  it  of  a  person  of  impeccable  virtue,  of  en- 
lightened intellect,  and  of  a  character  cast  in  an- 
tique moulds  of  noble  simplicity  and  Spartan  cour- 
age. You  think,  my  brother,  that  this  favourite  of 
fortune  is  likely  to  favour  your  plea  for  your  par- 
ishioners? " 

"  Dear  and  revered  brother,"  replied  Don  Sil- 
verio,  "  I  came  hither  with  no  such  illusions.  If 
I  had  done,  your  biography  of  this  functionary 
would  have  dispelled  them." 

Nevertheless,  although  without  hope,  at  two 
o'clock  of  that  day  he  went  to  the  audience  which 
was  granted  him  at  the  intervention  of  the  bishop 
of  the  city,  obtained  by  means  of  the  vicar  of  Sant 
Anselmo. 

The  Prefecture  was  situated  in  a  palace  of  six- 
teenth century  architecture,  a  noble  and  stately 
place  of  immense  size,  greatly  injured  by  tele- 
graph and  telephone  wires  stretching  all  round  it, 
the  post-office  and  the  tax  offices  being  situated  on 
the  ground  floor,  and  the  great  Central  Court 
daubed  over  with  fresh  paint  and  whitewash. 
Some  little  soldiers  in  dingy  uniforms,  ill-cut  and 
ill-fitting,  stood  about  gates  and  doors.  On  the 
first  floor  were  the  apartments  occupied  by  his 
Excellency.  Don  Silverio  was  kept  waiting  for 


236  The  Waters  of  Edera 

some  time  in  a  vestibule  of  fine  proportions 
painted  by  Diotisalvi,  with  a  colossal  marble 
group  in  its  centre  of  the  death  of  Caesar. 

He  looked  at  it  wistfully. 

"  Ah,  Giulio !  "  he  murmured,  "  what  use  were 
your  conquests,  what  use  was  your  genius,  the 
greatest  perchance  the  world  has  ever  seen  ?  What 
use?  You  were  struck  in  the  throat  like  a  felled 
ox,  and  the  land  you  ruled  lies  bleeding  at  every 
pore!" 

In  a  quarter  of  an  hour  he  was  ushered  through 
other  large  rooms  into  one  of  great  architectural 
beauty,  where  the  Prefect  was  standing  by  a  writ- 
ing-table. 

Giovacchino  Gallo  was  a  short,  stout  person 
with  a  large  stomach,  a  bald  head,  bright  restless 
eyes,  and  a  high,  narrow  forehead;  his  face  was 
florid,  like  the  face  of  one  to  whom  the  pleasures 
of  the  table  are  not  alien.  His  address  was  cour- 
teous but  distant,  stiff,  and  a  little  pompous;  he 
evidently  believed  in  himself  as  a  great  person, 
and  only  unbent  to  other  greater  persons,  when 
he  unbent  so  vastly  that  he  crawled. 

"What  can  I  do  for  your  Reverence?"  he 
asked,  as  he  seated  himself  behind  the  writing- 
table  and  pointed  to  a  chair. 

The  words  were  polite  but  the  tone  was  curt ;  it 
was  officialism  crystallised. 

Don  Silverio  explained  the  purpose  of  his  visit. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  237 

and  urged  the  prayers  of  his  people.  "  I  am  but 
the  vicar  of  Ruscino,"  he  said  in  explanation, 
"but  in  this  matter  I  plead  for  all  the  natives 
of  the  Val  d'Edera.  Your  Excellency  is  Governor 
of  this  part  of  the  province  in  which  the  Edera 
takes  its  rise,  and  has  its  course.  My  people,  and 
all  those  others  who  are  not  under  my  ministry, 
but  whose  desires  and  supplications  I  represent, 
venture  to  look  to  you  for  support  in  their  great 
distress,  and  intercession  for  them  against  this  ca- 
lamity." 

The  face  of  the  Prefect  grew  colder  and  sterner, 
his  eyes  got  an  angry  sparkle,  his  plump,  rosy 
hands  closed  on  a  malachite  paper-knife;  he 
wished  the  knife  were  of  steel,  and  the  people  of 
the  Val  d'Edera  had  but  one  head. 

"  Are  you  aware,  sir,"  he  said  impatiently, 
"  that  the  matter  of  which  you  speak  has  had  the 
ratification  of  Parliament  ?  " 

"  But  it  has  not  had  the  ratification  of  the  per- 
sons whom  it  most  concerns." 

"  Do  you  suppose,  then,  when  a  great  public 
work  is  to  be  accomplished  the  promoters  are  to 
go  hat  in  hand  for  permission  to  every  peasant 
resident  on  the  area  ?  " 

"  A  great  public  work  seems  to  me  a  large  ex- 
pression; too  large  for  this  case.  The  railway  is 
not  needed.  The  acetylene  works  are  a  private 


238  The  Waters  of  Edera 

speculation.  I  venture  to  recall  to  your  Excel- 
lency that  these  people,  whom  you  would  ignore, 
own  the  land,  or,  where  they  do  not  own  it,  have 
many  interests  both  in  the  land  and  the  water." 

"  Their  interests  are  considered  and  will  be 
compensated,"  said  the  Prefect.  "  I  do  not  admit 
that  any  of  them  can  claim  more." 

"  Pardon  me,  your  Excellency,  but  that  is  a 
phrase:  it  is  not  a  fact.  You  could  not,  if  you 
gave  them  millions,  compensate  them  for  the  seiz- 
ure of  their  river  and  their  lands.  These  belong 
to  them  and  to  their  descendants  by  natural  right. 
They  cannot  be  deprived  of  these  by  Act  of  Par- 
liament without  gross  injury  and  injustice." 

"  There  must  be  suffering  for  the  individual  in 
all  benefit  of  the  general !  " 

"  And  doubtless,  sir,  when  one  is  not  the  indi- 
vidual the  suffering  appears  immaterial !  " 

"  What  an  insolent  priest !  "  thought  Giovac- 
chino  Gallo,  and  struck  the  paper-knife  with  an- 
ger on  the  table. 

"  Take  my  own  parishioners  alone,"  pursued 
Don  Silverio.  '  Their  small  earnings  depend  en- 
tirely upon  the  Edera  water;  it  gives  them  their 
food,  their  bed,  their  occupation;  it  gives  them 
health  and  strength;  it  irrigates  their  little  hold- 
ings, extra  muros,  on  which  they  and  their  fami- 
lies depend  for  grain  and  maize  and  rice.  If  you 


The  Waters  of  Edera  239 

change  their  river-bed  into  dry  land  they  will 
starve.  Are  not  your  own  countrymen  dearer  to 
you  than  the  members  of  a  foreign  syndicate  ?  " 

"  There  will  be  work  for  them  at  the  acetylene 
factory." 

"  Are  they  not  free  men  ?  Are  they  to  be  driven 
like  slaves  to  a  work  which  would  be  hateful  to 
them  ?  These  people  are  country  born  and  country 
bred.  They  labour  in  the  open  air,  and  have  done 
so  for  generations.    Pardon  me,  your  Excellency, 
but  every  year  the  King's  Government  forces  into 
exile  thousands,  tens  of  thousands,  of  our  hard- 
working peasants  with  their  families.    The  taxa- 
tion of  the  land  and  of  all  its  products  lay  waste 
thousands  of  square  miles  in  this  country.     The 
country  is  being  depleted  and  depopulated,  and 
the  best  of  its  manhood  is  being  sent  out  of  it  by 
droves  to  Brazil,  to  La  Plata,  to  the  Argentines, 
to  anywhere  and  everywhere,    where  labour  is 
cheap  and  climate  homicidal.  The  poor  are  packed 
on  emigrant  ships  and  sent  with  less  care  than 
crates  of  fruit  receive.     They  consent  to  go  be- 
cause they  are  famished  here.     Is  it  well  for  a 
country  to  lose  its  labouring  classes,  its  frugal, 
willing,    and   hard-working   manhood?   to   pack 
them  off  across  the  oceans  by  contract  with  other 
states?    The  Government  has  made  a  contract 
with  a  Pacific  island  for  five  thousand  Italians? 


240  The  Waters  of  Edera 

Are  they  free  men  or  are  they  slaves  ?  Can  your 
Excellency  call  my  people  free  who  are  allowed 
no  voice  against  the  seizure  of  their  own  river, 
and  to  whom  you  offer  an  unwholesome  and  in- 
door labour  as  compensation  for  the  ruin  of  their 
lives?  Now,  they  are  poor  indeed,  but  they  are 
contented ;  they  keep  body  and  soul  together,  they 
live  on  their  natal  soil,  they  live  as  their  fathers 
lived.  Is  it  just,  is  it  right,  is  it  wise  to  turn  these 
people  into  disaffection  and  despair  by  an  act  of 
tyranny  and  spoliation  through  which  the  only 
gainers  will  be  foreign  speculators  abroad  and  at 
home  the  gamblers  of  the  Bourses?  Sir,  I  do  not 
believe  that  the  world  holds  people  more  patient, 
more  long-suffering,  more  pacific  under  dire  prov- 
ocation, or  more  willing  to  subsist  on  the  poorest 
and  hardest  conditions  than  Italians  are ;  is  it  right 
or  just  or  wise  to  take  advantage  of  that  national 
resignation  to  take  from  half  a  province  the  nat- 
ural air  and  the  natural  beauty  with  which  God 
himself  has  dowered  it  in  the  gift  of  the  moun- 
tain-born stream?  You  are  powerful,  sir,  you 
have  the  ear  of  the  Government,  will  you  not  try 
to  stop  this  infamous  theft  of  the  Edera  water 
whilst  there  is  still  time?  " 

Don  Silverio  spoke  with  that  eloquence  and 
with  that  melody  of  voice  which  few  could  bear 
unmoved;  and  even  the  dull  ear  and  the  hard 
heart  of  the  official  who  heard  him  were  for  one 


The  Waters  of  Edera  24 1 

brief  moment  moved  as  by  the  pathos  of  a  song 
sung  by  some  great  tenor. 

But  that  moment  was  very  brief.  Over  the 
face  of  Giovacchino  Gallo  a  look  passed  at  once 
brutal  and  suspicious.  "  Curse  this  priest !  "  he 
thought;  "  he  will  give  us  trouble." 

He  rose,  stiff,  cold,  pompous,  with  a  frigid 
smile  upon  his  red,  full  bon  viveur's  lips. 

"  If  you  imagine  that  I  should  venture  to  at- 
tack, or  even  presume  to  criticise,  a  matter  which 
the  Most  Honourable  the  Minister  of  Agriculture 
has  in  his  wisdom  approved  and  ratified,  you  must 
have  a  strange  conception  of  my  fitness  for  my 
functions.  As  regards  yourself,  Reverend  Sir,  I 
regret  that  you  appear  to  forget  that  the  chief 
duty  of  your  sacred  office  is  to  inculcate  to  your 
flock  unquestioning  submission  to  Governmental 
decrees." 

"  Is  that  your  Excellency's  last  word  ?  " 

"  It  is  my  first,  and  my  last,  word." 

Don  Silverio  bowed  low. 

"  You  may  regret  it,  sir,"  he  said  simply,  and 
left  the  writing-table  and  crossed  the  room.  But 
as  he  approached  the  door  the  Prefect,  still  stand- 
ing, said,  "  Wait !" 

Gallo  opened  two  or  three  drawers  in  his  table 
searched  for  some  papers,  looked  over  them,  leav- 
ing the  priest  always  standing  between  him  and 
the  door.  Don  Silverio  was  erect;  his  tall,  frail 


242  The  Waters  of  Edera 

form  had  a  great  majesty  in  it;  his  pallid  features 
were  stern. 

"  Return  a  moment,"  said  Gallo. 

"  I  can  hear  your  Excellency  where  I  am,"  re- 
plied Don  Silverio,  and  did  not  stir." 

"  I  have  here  reports  from  certain  of  my 
agents,"  said  Gallo,  fingering  his  various  papers, 
"  that  there  is  and  has  been  for  some  time  a  sub- 
versive movement  amongst  the  sparse  popula- 
tion of  the  Val  d'Edera." 

Don  Silverio  did  not  speak  or  stir. 

"  It  is  an  agrarian  agitation,"  continued  Gallo, 
"  limited  in  its  area,  with  little  probability  of 
spreading,  but  it  exists;  there  are  meetings  by 
night,  both  open-air  and  secret  meetings;  the  lat- 
ter take  place  now  in  one  farmhouse,  now  in  an- 
other. The  leader  of  this  noxious  and  unlawful 
movement  is  one  Adone  Alba.  He  is  of  your  par- 
ish." 

He  lifted  his  eyelids  and  flashed  a  quick,  search- 
ing glance  at  the  priest. 

"  He  is  of  my  parish,"  repeated  Don  Silverio, 
with  no  visible  emotion. 

"  You  know  of  this  agitation  ?  " 

"  If  I  did,  sir,  I  should  not  say  so.  But  I  am 
not  in  the  confidence  of  Adone  Alba." 

"Of  course  I  do  not  ask  you  to  reveal  the  se- 
crets of  the  confessional,  but " 

"  Neither  in  the  confessional  or  out  of  it  have 


The  Waters  of  Edera  143 

I  heard  anything  whatever  from  him  concerning 
any  such  matter  as  that  of  which  you  speak." 

"  He  is  a  young  man  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  And  owner  of  the  land  known  as  the  Terra 
Vergine?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  And  his  land  is  comprised  in  that  which  will 
be  taken  by  the  projected  works  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  Are  you  sure  that  he  has  not  sent  you  here?  " 

"  My  parishioners  are  not  in  the  habit  of  '  send- 
ing '  me  anywhere.  You  reverse  our  respective 
positions." 

"  Humility  is  not  one  of  your  ecclesiastical  vir- 
tues, Most  Reverend." 

"  It  may  be  so." 

Galba  thrust  his  papers  back  into  their  drawer 
and  locked  it  with  a  sharp  click. 

"  You  saw  the  Syndic  of  San  Beda?  " 

"  I  did." 

"  What  did  he  say  to  you?  " 

"  Much  what  you  say.  Official  language  is  al- 
ways limited  and  learned  by  rote." 

Galba  would  willingly  have  thrown  his  bronze 
inkstand  at  the  insolent  ecclesiastic;  his  temper 
was  naturally  choleric,  though  years  of  syco- 
phancy and  state  service  had  taught  him  to  con- 
trol it. 


244  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  Well,  Reverend  Sir !  "  he  said,  with  ill-con- 
cealed irritation,  "  this  conversation  is  I  see  use- 
less. You  protect  and  screen  your  people.  Per- 
haps I  cannot  blame  you  for  that,  but  you  will 
allow  me  to  remind  you  that  it  is  my  duty  to  see 
that  the  order  and  peace  of  this  district  are  not  in 
any  manner  disturbed ;  and  that  any  parish  priest 
if  he  fomented  dissatisfaction  or  countenanced 
agitation  in  his  district,  would  be  much  more  se- 
verely dealt  with  by  me  than  any  civilian  would 
be  in  the  same  circumstances.  We  tolerate  and 
respect  the  Church  so  long  as  she  remains  strictly 
within  her  own  sphere,  but  so  long  only." 

"  We  are  all  perfectly  well  aware  of  the  con- 
ditions attached  to  the  placet  and  the  exequator 
at  all  times,  and  we  are  all  conscious  that  even 
the  limited  privileges  of  civilians  are  denied  to 
us !  "  replied  Don  Silverio.  "  I  have  the  honour 
to  wish  your  Excellency  good  morning." 

He  closed  the  door  behind  him. 

"  Damnation !  "  said  Giovacchino  Gallo ;  "  that 
is  a  strong  man!  Is  Mother  Church  blind  that 
she  lets  such  an  one  rust  and  rot  in  the  miserable 
parish  of  Ruscino  ?  " 

When  Don  Silverio  rejoined  the  Vicar  of  Sant 
Anselmo  the  latter  asked  him  anxiously  how  his 
errand  had  sped. 

"  It  was  waste  of  breath  and  of  words,"  he  an- 


The  Waters  of  Edera  245 

swered.  "  I  might  have  known  that  it  would  be 
so  with  any  Government  official." 

"  But  you  might  have  put  a  spoke  in  Count 
Corradini's  wheel.  If  you  had  told  Gallo  that  the 
other  is  trafficking " 

"  Why  should  I  betray  a  man  who  received  me 
in  all  good  faith  ?  And  what  good  would  it  have 
accomplished  if  I  had  done  so  ?  " 

And  more  weary  than  ever  in  mind  and  body 
he  returned  to  Ruscino. 

As  he  had  left  the  Prefect's  presence  that  emi- 
nent person  had  rung  for  his  secretary. 

"  Brandone,  send  me  Sarelli." 

In  a  few  moments  Sarelli  appeared ;  he  was  the 
usher  of  the  Prefecture  by  appointment ;  by  taste 
and  in  addition  he  was  its  chief  spy.  He  was  a 
native  of  the  city,  and  a  person  of  considerable 
acumen  and  excellent  memory;  he  never  needed 
to  make  memoranda — there  is  nothing  so  danger- 
ous to  an  official  as  written  notes. 

"  Sarelli,  what  are  the  reports  concerning  the 
vicar  of  Ruscino  ?  " 

Sarelli  stood  respectfully  at  attention;  he  had 
been  a  non-commissioned  officer  of  artillery,  and 
answered  in  rapid  but  clear  tones: 

"  Great  ability — great  eloquence — disliked  by 
superiors ;  formerly  great  preacher  in  Rome ;  sup- 
posed to  be  at  Ruscino  as  castigation;  learned — 
benevolent — correct." 


246  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  Humph !  "  said  Gallo,  disappointed.  "  Not 
likely  then  to  cause  trouble  or  disorder? — to  ne- 
cessitate painful  measures  ?  " 

Sarelli  rapidly  took  his  cue. 

"  Hitherto,  your  Excellency,  uniformly  correct ; 
except  in  one  instance " 

"That  instance?" 

"  Was  five  years  ago,  in  the  matter  of  the  ma- 
landrino,  Ferrero.  Your  Excellency  will  have 
heard  of  Ferrero  Ulisse,  a  great  robber  of  the 
lower  Abruzzi  ?  " 

"  I  have :    continue." 

"Ferrero  Ulisse  was  outlawed;  his  band  had 
been  killed  or  captured,  every  one ;  he  had  lost  his 
right  arm;  he  hid  for  many  years  in  the  lower 
woods  of  the  Abruzzi ;  he  came  down  at  night  to 
the  farmhouses,  the  people  gave  him  food  and 
drink,  and  aided  him " 

"  Their  criminal  habit  always :  continue." 

"  Sometimes  in  one  district,  sometimes  in  an- 
other, he  was  often  in  the  macchia  of  the  Val 
d'Edera.  The  people  of  the  district,  and  espe- 
cially of  Ruscino,  protected  him.  They  thought 
him  a  saint,  because  once  when  at  the  head  of  his 
band,  which  was  then  very  strong,  he  had  come 
into  Ruscino  and  done  them  no  harm,  but  only 
eaten  and  drunk,  and  left  a  handful  of  silver 
pieces  to  pay  for  what  he  and  his  men  had  taken. 
So  they  protected  him  now,  and  oftentimes  for 


The  Waters  of  Edera  247 

more  than  a  year  he  came  out  of  the  macchia,  and 
the  villagers  gave  him  all  they  could,  and  he  went 
up  and  down  Ruscino  as  if  he  were  a  king;  and 
this  lasted  for  several  seasons,  and,  as  we  learned 
afterwards,  Don  Silverio  Frascaro  had  cognisance 
of  this  fact,  but  did  nothing.  When  Ferrero 
Ulisse  was  at  last  captured  (it  is  nine  years  ago 
come  November,  and  it  was  not  in  Ruscino  but  in 
the  woods  above),  and  brought  to  trial,  many 
witnesses  were  summoned,  and  amongst  them 
this  Don  Silverio;  and  the  judge  said  to  him, 
'  You  had  knowledge  that  this  man  came  often- 
times into  your  parish  ? '  and  Don  Silverio  an- 
swered, '  I  had.'  '  You  knew  that  he  was  an  out- 
law, in  rupture  with  justice?'  'I  did,'  he  an- 
swered. Then  the  judge  struck  his  fist  with  an- 
ger on  his  desk.  '  And  you  a  priest,  a  guardian 
of  order,  did  not  denounce  him  to  the  authori- 
ties ? '  Then  Don  Silverio,  your  Excellency,  quite 
quietly,  but  with  a  smile  (for  I  was  there  close 
to  him),  had  the  audacity  to  answer  the  judge. 
'  I  am  a  priest,'  he  said,  '  and  I  study  my  breviary, 
but  I  do  not  find  in  it  any  command  which  au- 
thorises me  to  betray  my  fellow-creatures.'  That 
made  a  terrible  stir  in  the  tribunal,  your  Excel- 
lency. They  talked  of  committing  him  to  gaol 
for  contempt  of  court  and  for  collusion  with  the 
outlaw.  But  it  took  place  at  San  Beda,  where 


248  The  Waters  of  Edera 

they  are  all  papalini,  as  your  Excellency  knows, 
and  nothing  was  done,  sir." 

"  That  reply  is  verily  like  this  priest !  "  thought 
Giovacchino  Gallo.  "  A  man  of  ability,  of  intel- 
lect, of  incorruptible  temper,  but  a  man  as  like  as 
not  to  encourage  and  excuse  sedition." 

Aloud  he  said,  "  You  may  go,  Sarelli.  Good 
morning." 

"  May  I  be  allowed  a  word,  sir?  " 

"  Speak." 

"  May  it  not  well  be,  sir,  that  Don  Silverio's 
organisation  or  suggestion  is  underneath  this  in- 
surrectionary movement  of  the  young  men  in  the 
Vald'Edera?" 

"  It  is  possible ;  yes.    See  to  it." 

"  Your  servant,  sir." 

Sarelli  withdrew,  elated.  He  loved  tracking, 
like  a  bloodhound,  for  the  sheer  pleasure  of  the 
"  cold  foot  chase."  The  official  views  both  lay- 
man and  priest  with  contempt  and  aversion ;  both 
are  equally  his  prey,  both  equally  his  profit;  he 
lives  by  them  and  on  them,  as  the  galleruca  does 
on  the  elm  tree,  whose  foliage  it  devours,  but  he 
despises  them  because  they  are  not  officials,  as  the 
galleruca  doubtless,  if  it  can  think,  despises  the 
elm. 


XV 

OF  course  his  absence  could  not  be  hidden 
from  any  in  his  parish.  The  mere  presence  of  the 
rector  of  an  adjacent  parish,  who  had  taken  his 
duties,  sufficed  to  reveal  it.  For  so  many  years 
he  had  never  stirred  out  of  Ruscino  in  winter  cold 
or  summer  heat,  that  none  of  his  people  could 
satisfactorily  account  to  themselves  for  his  now 
frequent  journeys.  The  more  sagacious  supposed 
that  he  was  trying  to  get  the  project  for  the  river 
undone;  but  they  did  not  all  have  so  much  faith 
in  him.  Many  had  always  been  vaguely  suspicious 
of  him,  he  was  so  wholly  beyond  their  compre- 
hension. They  asked  Adone  what  he  knew,  or,  if 
he  knew  nothing,  what  he  thought.  Adone  put 
them  aside  with  an  impatient,  imperious  gesture. 
"  But  you  knew  when  he  went  to  Rome  ?  "  they 
persisted.  Adone  swung  himself  loose  from  them 
with  a  movement  of  anger.  It  hurt  him  to  speak 
of  the  master  he  had  renounced,  of  the  friend  he 
had  forsaken.  His  conscience  shrank  from  any 
distrust  of  Don  Silverio ;  yet  his  old  faith  was  no 
more  alive.  He  was  going  rapidly  down  a  steep 
descent,  and  in  that  downward  rush  he  lost  all  his 


250  The  Waters  of  Edera 

higher  instincts;  he  was  becoming  insensible  to 
everything  except  the  thirst  for  action,,  for  ven- 
geance. 

To  the  man  who  lives  in  a  natural  state  away 
from  cities  it  appears  only  virile  and  just  to  de- 
fend himself,  to  avenge  himself,  with  the  weapons 
which  nature  and  art  have  given  him ;  he  feels  no 
satisfaction  in  creeping  and  crawling  through  the 
labyrinths  of  the  law,  and  he  cannot  see  why  he, 
the  wronged,  should  be  forced  to  spend,  and  wait, 
and  humbly  pray,  while  the  wrongdoer  may  go, 
in  the  end,  unchastised.  Such  a  tribunal  as  St. 
Louis  held  under  an  oak-tree,  or  the  Emperor  Ak- 
bar  in  a  mango  grove,  would  be  intelligible  to 
him;  but  the  procedure,  the  embarrassments,  the 
sophistries,  the  whole  machinery  of  modern  law 
are  abhorrent  to  him. 

He  yearned  to  be  the  Tell,  the  Massaniello,  the 
Andreas  Hofer,  of  his  province;  but  the  apathy 
and  supineness  and  timidity  of  his  neighbours  tied 
his  hands.  He  knew  that  they  were  not  made  of 
the  stuff  with  which  a  leader  could  hope  to  con- 
quer. All  his  fiery  appeals  fell  like  shooting  stars, 
brilliant  but  useless;  all  his  vehement  excitations 
did  little  more  than  scare  the  peasants  whom  he 
sought  to  rouse.  A  few  bold  spirits  like  his  own 
seconded  his  efforts  and  aided  his  propaganda; 
but  these  were  not  numerous  enough  to  leaven  the 
inert  mass. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  251 

His  plan  was  primitive  and  simple:  it  was  to 
oppose  by  continual  resistance  every  attempt 
which  should  be  made  to  begin  the  projected 
works  upon  the  river ;  to  destroy  at  night  all  which 
should  be  done  in  the  day,  and  so  harass  and  in- 
timidate the  workmen  who  should  be  sent  there 
so  that  they  should,  in  fear  and  fatigue,  give  up 
their  labours.  They  would  certainly  be  foreign 
workmen;  that  is,  workmen  from  another  prov- 
ince; probably  from  Apulia.  It  was  said  that 
three  hundred  of  them  were  coming  that  week  to 
begin  the  works  above  Ruscino.  He  reckoned  that 
he  and  those  he  led  would  have  the  advantage  of 
local  acquaintance  with  the  land  and  water,  and 
could  easily,  having  their  own  homes  as  base, 
carry  on  a  guerilla  warfare  for  any  length  of  time. 
No  doubt,  he  knew,  the  authorities  would  send 
troops  to  the  support  of  the  foreign  labourers,  but 
he  believed  that  when  the  resolve  of  the  district 
to  oppose  at  all  hazards  any  interference  with  the 
Edera  should  be  made  clear,  the  Government 
would  not  provoke  an  insurrection  for  the  sake  of 
favouring  a  foreign  syndicate.  So  far  as  he  rea- 
soned at  all,  he  reasoned  thus. 

But  he  forgot,  or  rather  he  did  not  know,  that 
the  lives  of  its  people,  whether  soldiers  or  civil- 
ians, matter  very  little  to  any  Government,  and 
that  its  own  vanity,  which  it  calls  dignity,  and  the 
financial  interests  of  its  supporters, matter  greatly; 


252  The  Waters  of  Edera 

where  the  Executive  has  been  defied  there  it  is  in- 
exorable and  unscrupulous. 

Both  up  and  down  the  river  there  was  but  one 
feeling  of  bitter  rage  against  the  impending  ruin 
of  the  water;  there  was  but  one  piteous  cry  of 
helpless  desperation.  But  to  weld  this,  which  was 
mere  emotion,  into  that  sterner  passion  of  which 
resistance  and  revolt  are  made,  was  a  task  beyond 
his  powers. 

"  No  one  will  care  for  us ;  we  are  too  feeble, 
we  are  too  small,"  they  urged ;  they  were  willing 
to  do  anything  were  they  sure  it  would  succeed, 
but 

"  But  who  can  be  sure  of  anything  under 
heaven  ?  "  replied  Adone.  "  You  are  never  sure  of 
your  crops  until  the  very  last  day  that  they  are 
reaped  and  carried;  yet  you  sow." 

Yes,  they  granted  that;  but  sowing  grain  was 
a  safe,  familiar  labour;  the  idea  of  sowing  lead 
and  death  alarmed  them.  Still  there  were  some, 
most  of  them  those  who  were  dwellers  on  the 
river,  or  owners  of  land  abutting  on  it,  who  were 
of  more  fiery  temper,  and  these  thought  as  Adone 
thought,  that  never  had  a  rural  people  juster  cause 
for  rebellion;  and  these  gathered  around  him  in 
those  meetings  by  night  of  which  information  had 
reached  the  Prefecture,  for  there  are  spies  in  every 
province. 

Adone  had  changed  greatly ;  he  had  grown  thin 


The  Waters  of  Edera  253 

and  almost  gaunt ;  he  had  lost  his  beautiful  aspect 
of  adolescence ;  his  eyes  had  no  longer  their  clear 
and  happy  light;  they  were  keen  and  fierce,  and 
looked  out  defiantly  from  under  his  level  brows. 

He  worked  on  his  own  land  usually,  by  day,  to 
stave  off  suspicion;  but  by  night  he  scoured  the 
country  up  and  down  the  stream  wherever  he  be- 
lieved he  could  find  proselytes  or  arms.  He  had 
no  settled  plan  of  action ;  he  had  no  defined  pro- 
ject ;  his  only  idea  was  to  resist,  to  resist,  to  resist. 
Under  a  leader  he  would  have  been  an  invaluable 
auxiliary,  but  he  had  not  knowledge  enough  of 
men,  or  of  the  way  to  handle  them,  to  direct  a 
revolt;  and  he  had  no  knowledge  whatever  of 
stratagem,  or  manoeuvre,  or  any  of  the  manifold 
complications  of  guerilla  warfare.  His  calm  and 
dreamy  life  had  not  prepared  him  to  be  all  at  once 
a  man  of  action :  action  was  akin  alike  to  his  tem- 
perament and  to  his  habits.  All  his  heart,  his 
blood,  his  imagination,  were  on  fire;  but  behind 
them  there  was  not  that  genius  of  conception  and 
command  which  alone  makes  the  successful  chief 
of  a  popular  cause. 

His  mother  said  nothing  to  disturb  or  deter  him 
on  his  course,  but  in  herself  she  was  sorely  afraid. 
She  kept  her  lips  shut  because  she  would  have 
thought  it  unworthy  to  discourage  him,  and  she 
could  not  believe  in  his  success,  try  how  she  might 
to  compel  her  faith  to  await  miracles. 


254  The  Waters  of  Edera 

Little  Nerina  alone  gave  him  that  unquestion- 
ing, unhesitating,  blind  belief  which  is  so  dear  to 
the  soul  of  man.  Nerina  was  convinced  that  at 
his  call  the  whole  of  the  Val  d' Edera  would  rise 
full-armed,  and  that  no  hostile  power  on  earth 
would  dare  to  touch  the  water.  To  her  any  mira- 
cle seemed  possible.  Whatever  he  ordered,  she 
did.  She  had  neither  fear  or  hesitation.  She 
would  slip  out  of  her  room  unheard,  and  speed 
over  the  dark  country  on  moonless  nights  on  his 
errands;  she  would  seek  for  weapons  and  bring 
them  in  and  distribute  them;  she  would  take  his 
messages  to  those  on  whom  he  could  rely,  and 
rouse  to  his  cause  the  hesitating  and  half-hearted 
by  repetition  of  his  words.  Her  whole  young  life 
had  caught  fire  at  his ;  and  her  passionate  loyalty 
accepted  without  comprehending  all  he  enjoined 
on  her  or  told  to  her. 

The  danger  which  she  ran  and  the  concealment 
of  which  she  was  guilty,  never  disturbed  her  for 
an  instant.  What  Adone  ordained  was  her  law. 
Had  he  not  taken  pity  on  her  in  her  misery  that 
day  by  the  river?  Was  she  not  to  do  anything 
and  everything  to  serve  him  and  save  the  river? 
This  was  her  sole  creed ;  but  it  sufficed  to  fill  her 
still  childish  soul.  If  with  it  there  was  mingled  a 
more  intense  and  more  personal  sentiment,  she 
was  unconscious  of,  and  he  indifferent  to,  it.  He 
sent  her  to  do  his  bidding  as  he  would  have  sent 


The  Waters  of  Edera  255 

a  boy,  because  he  recognized  in  her  that  leal  and 
fervent  fidelity  to  a  trust  of  which  he  was  not  sure 
in  others. 

Although  she  was  a  slender  brown  thing,  like 
a  nightingale,  she  was  strong,  elastic,  untiring; 
nothing  seemed  to  fatigue  her ;  she  always  looked 
as  fresh  as  the  dew,  as  vigorous  as  a  young  cher- 
ry-tree. Her  big  hazel  eyes  danced  under  their 
long  lashes,  and  her  pretty  mouth  was  like  one 
of  the  four-season  roses  which  bloomed  on  the 
house  wall.  She  was  not  thought  much  to  look 
at  in  a  province  where  the  fine  Roman  type  is 
blended  with  the  Venetian  colouring  in  the  beauty 
of  its  women ;  but  she  had  a  charm  and  a  grace  of 
her  own;  wild  and  rustic,  like  that  of  a  spray  of 
grass  or  a  harvest  mouse  swinging  on  a  stalk  of 
wheat. 

She  was  so  lithe,  so  swift,  so  agile;  so  strong 
without  effort,  so  buoyant  and  content,  that  she 
carried  with  her  the  sense  of  her  own  perfect 
health  and  happiness,  as  the  east  wind  blowing 
up  the  Edera  water  bore  with  it  the  scent  of  the 
sea. 

But  of  any  physical  charm  in  her  Adone  saw 
nothing.  A  great  rage  filled  his  soul,  and  a  black 
cloud  seemed  to  float  between  him  and  all  else 
which  was  not  the  wrong  done  to  him  and  his 
and  the  water  of  Edera.  Until  he  should  have 
lifted  off  the  land  and  the  stream  this  coming 


256  The  Waters  of  Edera 

curse  which  threatened  them,  life  held  nothing 
for  him  which  could  tempt  or  touch  him. 

He  used  the  girl  for  his  own  purposes  and  did 
not  spare  her ;  but  those  purposes  were  only  those 
of  his  self-imposed  mission,  and  of  all  which  was 
youthful,  alluring,  feminine,  in  her  he  saw  noth- 
ing :  she  was  to  him  no  more  than  a  lithe,  swift, 
hardy  filly  would  have  been  which  he  should  have 
ridden  over  the  moors  and  pastures  to  its  death 
in  pursuit  of  his  end.  He  who  had  been  always 
so  tender  of  heart  had  grown  cruel;  he  would 
have  flung  corpse  upon  corpse  into  the  water  if 
by  such  holocaust  he  could  have  reached  his  pur- 
pose. What  had  drawn  him  to  Nerina  had  been 
that  flash  of  ferocity  which  he  had  seen  in  her; 
that  readiness  to  go  to  the  bitter  end  in  the  sweet 
right  of  vengeance;  instincts  which  formed  so 
singular  a  contrast  to  the  childish  gaiety  and  the 
sunny  goodwill  of  her  normal  disposition. 

He  knew  that  nothing  which  could  have  been 
done  to  her  would  have  made  her  reveal  any  con- 
fidence he  placed  in  her.  That  she  was  often  out 
all  the  hours  of  the  night  on  errands  to  the  widely 
scattered  dwellings  of  the  peasants  did  not  pre- 
vent her  coming  at  dawn  into  the  cattle  stalls  to 
feed  and  tend  the  beasts. 

And  she  was  so  dexterous,  so  sure,  so  silent; 
even  the  sharp  eyes  of  old  Gianna  never  detected 
her  nocturnal  absence,  even  the  shrewd  observa- 
tion of  Clelia  Alba  never  detected  any  trace  of 


The  Waters  of  Edera  257 

fatigue  in  her  or  any  negligence  in  her  tasks. 
She  was  always  there  when  they  needed  her,  did 
all  that  she  was  used  to  do,  was  obedient  to  every 
word  or  sign ;  they  did  not  know  that  as  she  car- 
ried the  water  pails,  or  cut  the  grass,  or  swept  the 
bricks,  or  washed  the  linen,  her  heart  sung 
proudly  within  her  a  joyous  song  because  she 
shared  a  secret — a  perilous  secret — of  which  the 
elder  woman  knew  nothing.  Any  night  a  stray 
shot  might  strike  her  as  she  ran  over  the  moors, 
or  through  the  heather;  any  night  a  false  step 
might  pitch  her  headlong  into  a  ravine  or  a  pool; 
any  night,  returning  through  the  shallows  of  the 
ford,  she  might  miss  her  footing  and  fall  into  one 
of  the  bottomless  holes  that  the  river  hid  in  its 
depths;  but  the  danger  of  it  only  endeared  her 
errand  the  more  to  her ;  made  her  the  prouder  that 
she  was  chosen  for  it. 

"I  fear  nothing,"  she  said  to  him  truthfully; 
"  I  fear  only  that  you  should  not  be  content." 

And  as  signal  fires  run  from  point  to  point,  or 
hill  to  hill,  so  she  ran  from  one  farm  house  to  an- 
other bearing  the  messages  which  organized  those 
gatherings  whereof  Giavacchino  Gallo  had  the 
knowledge.  The  men  she  summoned  and  spoke 
with  were  rough  peasants,  for  the  most  part,  rude 
as  the  untanned  skins  they  wore  at  their  work, 
but  not  one  of  them  ever  said  a  gross  word  or 
gave  a  lewd  glance  to  the  child. 

She  was  la  bimba  to  them  all ;  a  brave  little  soul 


258  The  Waters  of  Edera 

and  honest ;  they  respected  her  as  if  she  were  one 
of  their  own  children,  or  one  of  their  own  sisters, 
and  Nerina  coming  through  the  starlight,  with 
an  old  musket  slung  at  her  back,  which  Adone 
had  taught  her  to  use,  and  her  small,  bronzed  feet 
leaping  over  the  ground  like  a  young  goat's,  was 
a  figure  which  soon  became  familiar  and  welcome 
to  the  people.  She  seemed  to  them  like  a  harbin- 
ger of  hope ;  she  had  few  words,  but  those  words 
reverberated  with  courage  and  energy ;  she  moved 
the  supine,  she  braced  the  timid ;  she  brought  the 
wavering  firmness,  and  the  nervous  strength ;  she 
said  what  Adone  had  taught  her  to  say,  but  she 
put  into  it  all  her  own  immense  faith  in  him,  all 
her  own  innocent  and  undoubting  certainty  that 
his  cause  was  just  and  would  be  blessed  by  heaven. 

The  Edera  water  belonged  to  them.  Would 
they  let  it  be  turned  away  from  their  lands  and 
given  to  strangers? 

As  a  little  spaniel  or  beagle  threshes  a  covert, 
obedient  to  his  master's  will  and  working  only 
to  please  him,  so  she  scoured  the  country-side  and 
drove  in,  by  persuasion,  or  appeal,  or  threat,  all 
those  who  would  lend  ear  to  her,  to  the  midnight 
meetings  on  the  moors,  or  in  the  homesteads, 
where  Adone  harangued  them,  with  eloquence 
ever  varied,  on  a  theme  which  was  never  stale, 
because  it  appealed  at  once  to  the  hearts  and  to 
the  interests  of  his  hearers. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  259 

But  many  of  them,  though  fascinated,  remained 
afraid. 

"  When  all  is  said,  what  can  we  do  ?  "  they 
muttered.  "  Authority  has  a  long  arm." 

The  people  of  the  district  talked  under  their 
breath  of  nothing  else  than  of  this  resistance 
which  was  being  preached  as  a  holy  war  by  the 
youth  of  the  Terra  Vergine.  They  were  secret 
and  silent,  made  prudent  by  many  generations 
which  had  suffered  from  harsh  measures  and  bru- 
tal reprisals,  but  the  league  he  proclaimed  fasci- 
nated and  possessed  them.  Conspiracy  has  a  se- 
duction subtle  and  irresistible  as  gambling  for 
those  who  have  once  become  its  servants.  It  is 
potent  as  wine,  and  colours  the  brain  which  it  in- 
flames. To  these  lowly,  solitary  men,  who  knew 
nothing  beyond  their  own  fields  and  coppices  and 
waste-lands,  its  excitement  came  like  a  magic  phil- 
ter to  change  the  monotony  of  their  days.  They 
were  most  of  them  wholly  unlettered;  knew  not 
their  ABC;  had  only  learned  the  law  of  the  sea- 
sons, and  the  earth,  and  the  trees  which  grew,  and 
the  beasts  which  grazed;  but  they  had  imagina- 
tion; they  had  the  blood  of  ancient  races;  they 
were  neither  dolts  nor  boors,  though  Adone  in  his 
wrath  called  them  so.  They  were  fascinated  by 
the  call  to  rise  and  save  their  river.  A  feeling, 
more  local  than  patriotism,  but  more  noble  than 
interest,  moved  them  to  share  in  his  passionate 


260  The  Waters  of  Edera 

hatred  of  the  intruders,  and  to  hearken  to  his  ap- 
peals to  them  to  arm  and  rise  as  one  man. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  long  years  of  servitude 
and  hardship  had  made  them  timid  as  gallant 
dogs  are  made  so  by  fasting  or  the  whip.  "  What 
are  we?  "  some  of  them  said  to  him.  "  We  are 
no  more  than  the  earthworms  in  the  soil."  For 
there  is  a  pathetic  humility  in  these  descendants 
of  the  ancient  rulers  of  the  world ;  it  is  a  humility 
born  of  hope  deferred,  of  the  sense  of  every 
change  being  but  a  change  of  masters,  of  the 
knowledge  that  the  sun  rises  and  sets  upon  their 
toil,  as  it  did  on  that  of  their  fathers,  as  it  will  do 
on  that  of  their  children,  and  will  never  see  it 
lessened,  nor  see  the  fruits  thereof  given  to  them- 
selves or  to  their  sons.  It  is  a  humility  which  is 
never  ignoble,  but  is  infinitely,  because  hopelessly, 
sad. 

The  river  was  their  own,  surely,  yes;  but,  like 
so  much  else  that  was  their  own,  the  State 
claimed  it. 

"  What  can  be  more  yours  than  the  son  you 
beget,  the  fruit  of  your  loins,  the  child  for  whom 
you  have  laboured  through  long  years?  "  said  an 
old  man  to  him  once.  "  Yet  the  State,  as  soon 
as  he  is  of  use  to  you,  the  State  takes  him,  makes 
a  beast  of  burden  of  him,  kills  his  youth  and  his 
manhood;  sends  him,  without  a  word  to  you,  to 
be  maimed  and  slaughtered  in  Africa,  his  very 


The  Waters  of  Edera  26 1 

place  of  death  unknown  to  you;  his  body — the 
body  you  begat  and  which  his  mother  bore  in  her 
womb  and  nourished  and  cherished — is  devoured 
by  the  beasts  of  the  desert  and  the  birds  of  the 
air.  They  take  all;  why  shall  they  not  take  the 
river  also?  " 

The  glowing  faith  of  Adone  was  flung,  as  the 
sunlit  salt  spray  of  the  ocean  is  cast  on  a  cliff  of 
basalt,  against  the  barrier  of  that  weary  and  pros- 
trate despair  which  the  State  dares  to  tell  the 
poor  is  their  duty  and  their  portion  upon  earth. 

But  the  younger  men  listened  to  him  more 
readily,  being  less  bent  and  broken  by  long  labour, 
and  poor  food,  and  many  years  of  unanswered 
prayers.  Of  these  some  had  served  their  time  in 
regiments,  and  aided  him  to  give  some  knowledge 
of  drill  and  of  the  use  of  weapons  to  those  who 
agreed  with  him  to  dispute  by  force  the  claim  of 
strangers  to  the  Edera  water. 

These  gatherings  took  place  on  waste  lands  or 
bare  heaths,  or  in  clearings  or  hollows  in  the 
woods,  and  the  tramp  of  feet  and  click  of  wea- 
pons scared  the  affrighted  fox  and  the  astounded 
badger.  They  dared  not  fire  lest  the  sound  should 
betray  their  whereabouts  to  some  unfriendly  ear; 
but  they  went  through  all  other  military  exercises 
as  far  as  it  lay  in  their  power  to  do  so. 

The  extreme  loneliness  of  the  Edera  valley  was 
in  their  favour.  Once  in  half  a  year,  perhaps, 


262  The  Waters  of  Edera 

half  a  troop  of  carabineers  might  ride  through  the 
district,  but  this  was  only  if  there  had  been  any 
notable  assassination  or  robbery;  and  of  police 
there  was  none  nearer  than  the.  town  of  San  Beda. 

It  was  to  arrange  these  nightly  exercises,  and 
summon  to  or  warn  off  men  from  them,  as  might 
be  expedient,  that  Nerina  was  usually  sent  upon 
her  nocturnal  errands.  One  night  when  she  had 
been  bidden  by  Adone  to  go  to  a  certain  hamlet 
in  the  woods  to  the  north,  the  child,  as  she  was 
about  to  slip  back  the  great  steel  bolts  which 
fastened  the  house  door,  saw  a  light  upon  the 
stairs  which  she  had  just  descended,  and  turning 
round,  her  hand  upon  the  lock,  saw  Clelia  Alba. 

"  Why  are  you  out  of  your  bed  at  this  hour?1' 
said  the  elder  woman.  Her  face  was  stern  and 
dark. 

Nerina  did  not  answer;  her  gay  courage  for- 
sook her ;  she  trembled. 

"  Why?  "  asked  Adone's  mother. 

"  I  was  going  out,"  answered  the  child.  Her 
voice  shook.  She  was  clothed  as  usual  in  the  day- 
time, but  she  had  over  her  head  a  woollen  wrap- 
per. She  had  not  her  musket,  for  she  kept  it  in 
the  hen-house,  and  was  accustomed  to  take  it  as 
she  passed  that  place. 

"  Going  out !  At  the  fourth  hour  of  the  night  ? 
Is  that  an  answer  for  a  decent  maiden  ?  " 

Nerina  was  silent. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  263 

"  Go  back  to  your  room,  and  I  will  lock  you  in 
it ;  in  the  morning  you  will  account  to  me." 

Nerina  recovered  her  self-possession,  though 
she  trembled  still. 

"  Pardon  me,  Madama  Clelia,"  she  said  hum- 
bly, "  I  must  go  out." 

She  did  not  look  ashamed,  and  her  small  brown 
face  had  a  resolute  expression. 

A  great  anguish  seized  and  wrung  the  heart  of 
Clelia  Alba.  She  knew  that  Adone  was  not  in 
the  house.  Did  he,  the  soul  of  purity  and  honour, 
seduce  a  girl  who  dwelt  under  his  own  roof? — 
carry  on  an  intrigue  with  a  little  beggar,  to  his 
own  shame  and  the  outrage  of  his  mother  ?  Was 
this  the  true  cause  of  his  frequent  absence,  his 
many  nights  abroad  ?  Her  dark  brows  contracted, 
her  black  eyes  blazed. 

"  Go  to  your  room,  wanton !  "  she  said  in  tones 
of  thunder.  "  In  the  morning  you  will  answer  to 
me." 

But  Nerina,  who  had  before  this  slipped  the 
bolts  aside,  and  who  had  always  kept  her  grasp 
upon  the  great  key  in  the  lock,  suddenly  turned 
it,  pushed  the  oak  door  open,  and  before  the  elder 
woman  was  conscious  of  what  she  was  doing,  had 
dashed  out  into  the  air,  and  slammed  the  door 
behind  her.  The  rush  of  wind  had  blown  out  the 
lamp  in  Clelia  Alba's  hand. 

When,  after  fumbling  vainly  for  some  minutes 


264  The  Waters  of  Edera 

to  find  the  door,  and  bruising  her  hands  against 
the  wall  and  an  oaken  chair,  she  at  last  found  it 
and  thrust  it  open,  the  night  without  was  moonless 
and  starless  and  stormy,  and  in  its  unillumined 
blackness  she  saw  no  trace  of  the  little  girl.  She 
went  out  on  to  the  doorstep  and  listened,  but  there 
was  no  sound.  The  wind  was  high ;  the  perfume 
of  the  stocks  and  wallflowers  was  strong;  far 
away  the  sound  of  the  river  rushing  through  the 
sedges  was  audible  in  the  intense  stillness,  an  owl 
hooted,  a  night  jar  sent  forth  its  sweet,  strange, 
sighing  note.  Of  Nerina  there  was  no  trace.  Cle- 
lia  Alba  came  within  and  closed  the  door,  and 
locked  and  bolted  it. 

The  old  woman  Gianna  had  come  downstairs 
with  a  lighted  rush  candle  in  her  hand;  she  was 
scared  and  afraid. 

"  What  is  it?  what  is  it,  madama?  " 

Qelia  Alba  dropped  down  on  the  chair  by  the 
door. 

"  It  is — it  is — that  the  beggar's  spawn  you 
would  have  me  shelter  is  the  leman  of  my  son; 
and  he  has  dishonoured  his  house  and  mine." 

Gianna  shook  her  grey  head  in  solemn  denial 
and  disbelief. 

"  Sior'a,  Clelia,  do  not  say  such  words  or  think 
such  thoughts  of  your  son  or  of  the  child.  She 
is  as  harmless  as  any  flower  that  blows  out  there 
in  the  garden,  and  he  is  a  noble  youth,  though 


The  Waters  of  Edera  265 

now,  by  the  wickedness  of  men,  distraught  and 
off  his  head.    What  makes  you  revile  them  so  ?  " 

"  They  are  both  out  this  night.  Is  not  that 
enough?  " 

Gianna  was  distressed;  from  her  chamber 
above  she  had  heard  the  words  which  had  passed 
between  Adone's  mother  and  Nerina,  and  knew 
the  girl  was  gone. 

"  I  would  condemn  others,  but  not  Adone  and 
the  child,"  she  returned.  "  For  sure  they  do  not 
do  right  to  have  secrets  from  you,  but  they  are 
not  such  secrets  as  you  think." 

"Enough!"  said  Clelia  Alba  sternly.  "The 
morning  will  show  who  is  right.  It  suffices  for 
me  that  the  son  of  Valerio  Alba,  my  son,  has  for- 
got his  duty  to  his  mother  and  his  respect  for 
himself." 

Clelia  Alba  rose  with  effort  from  her  chair,  re- 
lighted her  lamp  at  the  old  woman's  rush  candle, 
and  went  slowly  and  heavily  up  the  stairs.  She 
felt  stunned  and  outraged.  Her  son! — hers!  to 
lie  out  of  nights  with  a  little  nameless  vagrant ! 

Gianna  caught  hold  of  her  skirt.  "  Madama — 
listen.  I  saw  him  born  that  day  by  the  Edera 
water,  and  I  have  seen  him  every  day  of  his  life 
since  till  now.  He  would  never  do  a  base  thing. 
Do  not  you,  his  mother,  disgrace  him  by  thinking 
of  it  for  an  hour.  This  thing  is  odd,  is  ugly,  is 
strange,  but  wait  to  judge  it " 


266  The  Waters  of  Edera 

Clelia  Alba  released  her  skirt  from  her  old  ser- 
vant's grasp. 

"  You  mean  well,  but  you  are  crazed.  Get  you 
gone." 

Gianna  let  go  her  hold  and  crept  submissively 
down  the  stair.  She  set  her  rushlight  on  the 
floor  and  sat  down  in  the  chair  by  the  door,  and 
told  her  beads  with  shaking  fingers.  One  or  other 
of  them,  she  thought,  might  come  home  either 
soon  or  late,  for  she  did  not  believe  that  any 
amorous  intimacy  was  the  reason  that  they  were 
both  out — God  knew  where — in  this  windy,  pitch- 
dark  night. 

"  But  he  does  wrong,  he  does  wrong,"  she 
thought.  "  He  sends  the  child  on  his  errands 
perhaps,  but  he  should  remember  a  girl  is  like  a 
peach,  you  cannot  handle  it  ever  so  gently  but  its 
bloom  goes;  and  he  leaves  us  alone,  two  old 
women  here,  and  we  might  have  our  throats  cut 
before  we  should  wake  old  Ettore  in  the  stable." 

The  night  seemed  long  to  her  in  the  lone 
stone  entrance,  with  the  owls  hooting  round  the 
house,  and  the  winds  blowing  loud  and  tearing 
the  tiles  from  the  roof.  Above,  in  her  chamber, 
Adone's  mother  walked  to  and  fro  all  night  sleep- 
less. 


XVI 

GIANNA  before  it  was  dawn  went  out  in  the 
hope  that  she  might  meet  Adone  on  his  return, 
and  be  able  to  speak  to  him  before  he  could  see 
his  mother.  She  was  also  in  extreme  anxiety  for 
Nerina,  of  whom  she  had  grown  fond.  She  did 
not  think  the  little  girl  would  dare  return  after 
the  words  of  Clelia  Alba.  She  knew  the  child  was 
courageous,  but  timid,  like  an  otter  or  a  swallow. 

She  went  to  the  edge  of  the  river  and  waited; 
he  must  cross  it  to  come  home;  but  whether  he 
would  cross  higher  up  or  lower  down  she  could 
not  tell.  There  was  the  faint  light  which  pre- 
ceded the  rising  of  the  sun.  A  great  peace,  a 
great  freshness,  were  on  the  water  and  the  land. 

"  Oh  Lord,  what  fools  we  are ! "  thought  the 
old  woman.  "  The  earth  makes  itself  anew  for 
us  with  every  dawn,  and  our  own  snarling,  and 
fretting,  and  mourning  clouds  it  all  over  for  us, 
and  we  only  see  our  own  silly  souls ! " 

Soon,  before  the  sun  was  rising,  Adone  came  in 

sight,  passing  with  firm  accustomed  step  across 

the  undressed  trunks  of  trees  which  were  here 

thrown  across  the  river  to  make  a  passage  lower 

267 


268  The  Waters  of  Edera 

down  the  stream  than  the  bridge  of  Ruscino.  He 
was  walking  with  spirit  and  ease,  his  head  was 
erect,  his  belt  was  filled  with  arms,  his  eyes  had 
sternness  and  command  in  them;  he  came  from 
one  of  the  military  drillings  in  the  woods,  and 
had  been  content  with  it.  Seeing  old  Gianna 
waiting  there  he  understood  that  something  must 
have  happened,  and  his  first  fears  were  for  his 
mother. 

"  Is  she  ill  ?  "  he  cried,  as  he  reached  the  bank 
of  his  own  land. 

"  No ;  she  is  well  in  health,"  answered  Gianna, 
"  but  she  is  sorely  grieved  and  deeply  angered ; 
she  found  the  girl  Nerina  going  out  at  the  dead 
of  night." 

Adone  changed  colour.  He  was  silent.  Gianna 
came  close  to  him. 

"  The  child  and  you  both  out  all  night,  heaven 
knows  where!  What  but  one  thing  can  your 
mother  think?" 

"  If  she  thinks  but  one  thing,  that  thing  is 
false." 

"  Maybe.  I  believe  so  myself,  but,  Sior'  Clelia 
will  not.  Why  do  you  send  the  child  out  at  such 
hours?  " 

"  What  did  she  say  to  my  mother  ?  " 

"  Nothing;   only  that  she  had  to  go." 

"Faithful  little  soul!" 

"  Aye !    And  it  is  when  little  maids  are  faithful 


The  Waters  of  Edera  269 

like  this  that  men  ruin  them.  I  do  not  want  to 
speak  without  respect  to  you,  Adone,  for  I  have 
eaten  your  bread  and  been  sheltered  by  your  roof 
through  many  a  year;  but  for  whatever  end  you 
send  that  child  out  of  nights,  you  do  a  bad  thing, 
a  cruel  thing,  a  thing  unworthy  of  your  stock; 
and  if  I  know  Clelia  Alba — and  who  should  know 
her  if  not  I  ? — she  will  never  let  Nerina  enter  her 
house  again." 

Adone's  face  grew  dark. 

"  The  house  is  mine.  Nerina  shall  not  be  turned 
out  of  it." 

"  Perhaps  it  is  yours ;  but  it  is  your  mother's 
too,  and  you  will  scarce  turn  out  your  mother  for 
the  sake  of  a  little  beggar-girl  ?  " 

Adone  was  silent;  he  saw  the  dilemma;  he 
knew  his  mother's  nature ;  he  inherited  it. 

"  Go  you,"  he  said  at  last ;  "  go  you  and  tell  her 
that  the  child  went  out  on  my  errands,  indeed,  but 
I  have  not  seen  her ;  there  is  no  collusion  with  her, 
and  she  is  not  and  never  will  be  darna  of  mine." 

"  I  will  take  her  no  such  message,  for  she 
would  not  listen.  Go  you ;  say  what  you  choose ; 
perhaps  she  will  credit  you,  perhaps  she  will  not. 
Anyhow,  you  are  warned.  As  for  me,  I  will  go 
and  search  for  Nerina." 

"  Do  you  mean  she  has  not  returned  ?  " 

"  Certainly  she  has  not.  She  will  no  more  dare 
to  return  than  a  kicked  dog.  You  forget  she  is  a 


270  The  Waters  of  Edera 

young  thing,  a  creature  of  nothing;  she  thinks 
herself  no  more  than  a  pebble  or  a  twig.  Besides, 
your  mother  called  her  a  wanton.  That  is  a  word 
not  soon  washed  out.  She  is  humble  as  a  blade 
of  grass,  but  she  will  resent  that.  You  have  made 
much  trouble  with  your  rebellious  work.  You 
have  done  ill— ill— ill!" 

Adone  submitted  mutely  to  the  upbraiding;  he 
knew  he  had  done  selfishly,  wrongfully,  brutally, 
that  which  had  seemed  well  to  himself  with  no 
consideration  of  others. 

"  Get  you  gone  and  search  for  the  child,"  he 
said  at  last.  "  I  will  go  myself  to  my  mother." 

"  It  is  the  least  you  can  do.  But  you  must  not 
forget  the  cattle.  Nerina  is  not  there  to  see  to 
them." 

She  pushed  past  him  and  went  on  to  the  foot- 
bridge; but  midway  across  it  she  turned  and 
called  to  him :  "  I  lit  the  fire,  and  the  coffee  is  on 
it.  Where  am  I  to  look  for  the  child?  In  the 
heather?  in  the  woods?  up  in  Ruscino?  down  in 
the  lower  valley  ?  or  may  be  at  the  presbytery  ?  " 

"  Don  Silverio  is  absent,"  Adone  called  back 
to  her ;  and  he  passed  on  under  the  olive-trees  to- 
wards his  home.  Gianna  paused  on  the  bridge 
and  watched  him  till  he  was  out  of  sight;  then 
she  went  back  herself  by  another  path  which  led 
to  the  stables.  A  thought  had  struck  her :  Nerina 
was  too  devoted  to  the  cattle  to  have  let  them 


The  Waters  of  Edera  271 

suffer;  possibly  she  was  even  now  attending  to 
them  in  their  stalls. 

"  She  is  a  faithful  little  thing  as  he  said! "  the 
old  servant  muttered.  "  Yes;  and  such  as  she  are 
born  to  labour  and  to  suffer,  and  to  eat  the  bread 
of  bitterness." 

"  Where  is  she,  Pierino  ?  "  she  said  to  the  old 
white  dog ;  he  was  lying  on  the  grass ;  if  the  girl 
were  lost,  she  thought,  Pierino  would  be  away 
somewhere  looking  for  her. 

Gianna's  heart  was  hard  against  Adone;  in  a 
dim  way  she  understood  the  hopes  and  the 
schemes  which  occupied  him,  but  she  could  not 
forgive  him  for  sacrificing  to  them  his  mother  and 
this  friendless  child.  It  was  so  like  a  man,  she  said 
to  herself,  to  tear  along  on  what  he  thought  a  road 
to  glory,  and  never  heed  what  he  trampled  down 
as  he  went — never  heed  any  more  than  the  mower 
heeds  the  daisies. 

In  the  cattle  stalls  she  found  the  oxen  and  the 
cows  already  watered,  brushed,  and  content,  with 
their  pile  of  fresh  grass  beside  them;  there  was 
no  sound  in  the  stables  but  of  their  munching  and 
breathing,  and  now  and  then  the  rattle  of  the 
chains  which  linked  them  to  their  mangers. 

"  Maybe  she  is  amongst  the  hay,"  thought 
Gianna,  and  painfully  she  climbed  the  wide  rungs 
of  the  ladder  which  led  to  the  hay  loft.  There, 
sure  enough,  was  Nerina,  sound  asleep  upon  the 


272  The  Waters  of  Edera 

fodder.  She  looked  very  small,  very  young,  very 
innocent. 

The  old  woman  thought  of  the  first  day  that 
she  had  seen  the  child  asleep  on  the  stone  bench 
by  the  porch ;  and  her  eyes  grew  dim. 

"  Who  knows  where  you  will  rest  to-morrow?  " 
she  thought;  and  she  went  backwards  down  the 
ladder  noiselessly  so  as  not  to  awaken  a  sleeper, 
whose  awaking  might  be  so  sorrowful. 

Gianna  went  back  to  the  house  and  busied  her- 
self with  her  usual  tasks ;  she  could  hear  the  voices 
of  Adone  and  Clelia  Alba  in  the  chamber  above  : 
they  sounded  in  altercation,  but  their  words  she 
could  not  hear. 

It  was  at  dawn  that  same  day  that  Don  Silverio 
returned  from  his  interviews  with  Count  Corra- 
dini  and  Senatore  Gallo.  When  he  reached  Rus- 
cino  the  little  rector  of  the  village  in  the  woods 
had  already  celebrated  mass.  Don  Silverio 
cleansed  himself  from  the  dust  of  travel,  entered 
his  church  for  his  orisons,  then  broke  his  fast  with 
bread  and  a  plate  of  lentils,  and  whilst  the  day 
was  still  young  took  the  long  familiar  way  to  the 
Terra  Vergine.  Whatever  the  interview  might 
cost  in  pain  and  estrangement  he  felt  that  he 
dared  not  lose  an  hour  in  informing  Adone  of 
what  was  so  dangerously  known  at  the  prefecture. 

"  He  will  not  kill  me,"  he  thought ;  "  and  if  he 
did,  it  would  not  matter  much; — except  for  you, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  273 

my  poor  little  man,"  he  added  to  his  dog  Signo- 
rino,  who  was  running  gleefully  in  his  shadow. 
Gianna  saw  him  approaching  as  she  looked  from 
the  kitchen  window,  and  cried  her  thanks  to  the 
saints  with  passionate  gratitude.  Then  she  went 
out  and  met  him. 

"  Praise  be  to  the  Madonna  that  you  have  come 
back,  Reverendissimo !  "  she  cried.  "  There  are 
sore  trouble  and  disputes  under  our  roof." 

"  I  grieve  to  hear  that,"  he  answered ;  and 
thought,  "  I  fear  I  have  lost  my  power  to  cast  oil 
on  the  troubled  waters." 

He  entered  the  great  vaulted  kitchen  and  sat 
down,  for  he  was  physically  weary,  having  walked 
twenty  miles  in  the  past  night. 

"  What  you  feel  at  liberty  to  tell  me,  let  me 
hear,"  he  said  to  the  old  servant. 

Gianna  told  him  in  her  picturesque  warmly- 
coloured  phrase  what  had  passed  between  Sior' 
Clelia  and  the  little  girl  in  the  night;  and  what 
she  had  herself  said  to  Adone  at  dawn ;  and  how 
Nerina  was  lying  asleep  in  the  hay-loft,  being 
afraid,  doubtless,  to  come  up  to  the  house. 

Don  Silverio  listened  with  pain  and  indigna- 
tion. 

"  What  is  he  about  to  risk  a  female  child  on 
such  errands?  And  why  is  his  mother  in  such 
vehement  haste  to  say  cruel  words  and  think  un- 
just and  untrue  things?" 


274  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  They  are  unjust  and  untrue,  sir,  are  they 
not?  "  said  Gianna.  "  But  it  looked  ill,  you  see; 
a  little  creature  going  out  in  the  middle  of  the 
night,  and  to  be  sure  she  was  but  a  vagrant  when 
she  came  to  us." 

"  And  now — how  does  the  matter  stand  ?  Has 
Adone  convinced  his  mother  of  the  girl's  inno- 
cence ?  " 

"  Whew !  That  I  cannot  say,  sir.  They  are 
upstairs ;  and  their  voices  were  loud  an  hour  ago. 
Now  they  are  still.  I  had  a  mind  to  go  up,  but 
I  am  afraid." 

"  Go  up;  and  send  Adone  to  me." 

"  He  is  perhaps  asleep,  sir ;  he  came  across  the 
water  at  dawn." 

"  If  so,  wake  him.  I  must  speak  to  him  without 
delay." 

Gianna  went  and  came  down  quickly. 

"  He  is  gone  out  to  work  in  the  fields,  sir. 
Madama  told  me  so.  If  he  do  not  work,  the  land 
will  go  out  of  cultivation,  sir." 

"  He  may  have  gone  to  Nerina?  " 

"  I  do  not  think  so,  sir.  But  I  will  go  back  to 
the  stable  and  see." 

"  And  beg  Sior'  Clelia  to  come  down  to  me." 

He  was  left  alone  a  few  minutes  in  the  great 
old  stone  chamber  with  its  smell  of  dried  herbs 
hanging  from  its  rafters  and  of  maize  leaves 
baking  in  the  oven. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  275 

The  land  would  go  out  of  cultivation — yes! — 
and  the  acetylene  factories  would  take  the  place 
of  the  fragrant  garden,  the  olive  orchards,  the 
corn  lands,  the  pastures.  He  did  not  wonder  that 
Adone  was  roused  to  fury;  but  what  fury  would 
avail  aught?  What  pain,  what  despair,  what 
tears,  would  stay  the  desecration  for  an  hour? 
The  hatchet  would  hew  it  all  down,  and  the  steam 
plough  would  pass  over  it  all,  and  then  the  stone 
and  the  mortar,  the  bricks  and  the  iron,  the  en- 
gines, and  the  wheels,  and  the  cauldrons,  would 
be  enthroned  on  the  ruined  soil:  the  gods  of  a 
soulless  age. 

"  Oh,  the  pity  of  it !  The  pity  of  it !  "  thought 
Don  Silverio,  as  the  blue  sky  shone  through  the 
grated  window  and  against  the  blue  sky  a  rose 
branch  swung  and  a  swallow  circled. 

"  Your  servant,  Reverendissimo,"  said  the 
voice  of  Clelia  Alba,  and  Don  Silverio  rose  from 
his  seat. 

"  My  friend,"  he  said  to  her,  "  I  find  you  in 
trouble,  and  I  fear  that  I  shall  add  to  it.  But  tell 
me  first,  what  is  this  tale  of  Nerina  ?  " 

"  It  is  but  this,  sir;  if  Nerina  enter  here,  I  go." 

"  You  cannot  be  serious !  " 

"  If  you  think  so,  look  at  me." 

He  did  look  at  her ;  at  her  severe  aquiline  fea- 
tures, at  her  heavy  eyelids  drooping  over  eyes  of 
implacable  wrath,  at  her  firm  mouth  and  jaw, 


276  The  Waters  of  Edera 

cold  as  if  cut  in  marble.  She  was  not  a  woman  to 
trifle  or  to  waver ;  perhaps  she  was  one  who  hav- 
ing received  offence  would  never  forgive. 

"  But  it  is  monstrous !  " .  he  exclaimed ;  "  you 
cannot  turn  adrift  a  little  friendless  girl — you  can- 
not leave  your  own  house,  your  dead  husband's 
house — neither  is  possible —  you  rave !  " 

"  It  is  my  son's  house.  He  will  harbour  whom 
he  will.  But  if  the  girl  pass  the  doorstep  I  go. 
I  am  not  too  old  to  labour  for  myself." 

"  My  good  woman — my  dear  friend — it  is  in- 
credible! I  see  what  you  believe,  but  I  cannot 
pardon  you  for  believing  it.  Even  were  it  what 
you  choose  to  think — which  is  not  possible — 
surely  your  duty  to  a  motherless  and  destitute  girl 
of  her  tender  years  should  counsel  more  benevo- 
lence?" 

The  face  of  Clelia  Alba  grew  chillier  and  harder 
still. 

"  Sir,  leave  me  to  judge  of  my  own  duties  as 
the  mother  of  Adone,  and  the  keeper  of  this  house. 
He  has  told  me  that  he  is  master  here.  I  do  not 
deny  it.  He  is  over  age.  He  can  bring  her  here 
if  he  chooses,  but  I  go." 

"  But  you  must  know  the  child  cannot  live  here 
with  a  young  man !  " 

"Why  not?"  said  Clelia  Alba,  and  a  cruel 
smile  passed  over  her  face.  "  It  seems  to  me 
more  decent  than  lying  out  in  the  fields  together 
night  after  night." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  277 

"  Silence !  "  said  Don  Silverio  in  that  tone 
which  awed  the  boldest.  "  Of  what  avail  is  your 
own  virtue  if  it  makes  you  thus  harsh,  thus  un- 
believing, thus  ready  to  condemn  ?  " 

"  I  claim  no  more  virtue  than  any  clean-living 
woman  should  possess;  but  Valerio  Alba  would 
not  have  brought  his  leman  into  my  presence, 
neither  shall  his  son  do  so." 

"  In  your  present  mood  words  are  wasted  on 
you.  Go  to  your  chamber,  Sior'  Clelia,  and  en- 
treat Heaven  to  soften  your  heart.  There  is  sor- 
row enough  in  store  for  you  without  your  creating 
misery  out  of  suspicion  and  unbelief.  This  house 
will  not  long  be  either  yours  or  Adone's." 

He  left  the  kitchen  and  went  out  into  the  air; 
Clelia  Alba  was  too  proud,  too  dogged,  in  her 
obstinacy  to  endeavour  to  detain  him  or  to  ask 
him  what  he  meant. 

"  Where  is  Adone  ?  "  he  asked  of  the  old  man 
Ettore,  who  was  carrying  manure  in  a  great  skip 
upon  his  back. 

"  He  is  down  by  the  five  apple-trees,  sir,"  an- 
swered Ettore. 

The  five  apple-trees  were  beautiful  old  trees, 
gnarled,  moss-grown,  hoary,  but  still  bearing 
abundant  blossoms;  they  grew  in  a  field  which 
was  that  year  being  trenched  for  young  vines, 
a  hard  back-breaking  labour;  the  trenches  were 
being  cut  obliquely  so  as  not  to  disturb  the  apple- 
trees  or  injure  some  fine  fig-trees  which  grew 


278  The  Waters  of  Edera 

there.  Adone  was  at  work  stripped  to  his  shirt 
and  hidden  in  the  delved  earth  to  his  shoulders. 

He  looked  up  from  the  trench  and  lifted  his 
hat  as  he  saw  the  priest  enter  the  field;  then  he 
resumed  his  labour. 

"  Come  out  of  your  ditch  and  hearken  to  me.  I 
will  not  weary  you  with  many  words." 

Adone,  moved  by  long  habit  of  obedience  and 
deference,  leapt  with  his  agile  feet  on  to  the  bor- 
der of  the  trench  and  stood  there,  silent,  sullen, 
ready  to  repel  reproof  with  insolence. 

"  Is  it  worthy  of  you  to  ruin  the  name  of  a  girl 
of  sixteen  by  sending  her  on  midnight  errands  to 
your  fellow-rebels  ?  " 

Don  Silverio  spoke  bluntly;  he  spoke  only  on 
suspicion,  but  his  tone  was  that  of  a  direct 
charge. 

Adone  did  not  doubt  for  a  moment  that  he  was 
in  possession  of  facts. 

"  Has  the  girl  played  us  false  ? "  he  said 
moodily. 

"  I  have  not  seen  the  girl,"  replied  Don  Silverio. 
"  But  it  is  a  base  thing  to  do,  to  use  that  child  for 
errands  of  which  she  cannot  know  either  the  dan- 
ger or  the  illegality.  You  misuse  one  whose  youth 
and  helplessness  should  have  been  her  greatest 
protection." 

"  I  had  no  one  else  that  I  could  trust." 

"  Poor  little  soul !  You  could  trust  her,  so  you 
abused  her  trust !  No :  I  do  not  believe  you  are 


The  Waters  of  Edera  279 

her  lover.  I  do  not  believe  you  care  for  her  more 
than  for  the  clod  of  earth  you  stand  on.  But  to 
my  thinking  that  makes  what  you  have  done 
worse ;  colder,  more  cruel,  more  calculating.  Had 
you  seduced  her,  you  would  at  least  feel  that  you 
owed  her  something.  She  has  been  a  mere  little 
runner,  and  slave  to  you — no  more.  Surely  your 
knowledge  that  she  depends  on  you  ought  to  have 
sufficed  to  make  her  sacred  ?  " 

Adone  looked  on  the  ground.  His  face  was  red 
with  the  dull  flush  of  shame.  He  knew  that  he 
merited  all  these  words  and  more. 

"  I  will  provide  temporarily  for  her ;  and  you 
will  send  her  out  no  more  upon  these  errands," 
continued  Don  Silverio.  "  Perhaps,  with  time, 
your  mother  may  soften  to  her;  but  I  doubt  it." 

"  The  house  is  mine,"  said  Adone  sullenly. 
"  She  shall  not  keep  Nerina  out  of  it." 

"  You  certainly  cannot  turn  your  mother  away 
from  her  own  hearth,"  replied  Don  Silverio  with 
contempt.  "  I  tell  you  I  will  take  the  girl  to  some 
place  in  Ruscino  where  she  will  be  safe  for  the 
present  time.  But  I  came  to  say  another  thing 
to  you  as  well  as  this.  I  have  been  away  three 
days.  I  have  seen  the  Prefect,  Senatore  Gallo. 
He  has  informed  me  that  your  intentions,  your 
actions,  your  plans  and  coadjutors  are  known  to 
him,  and  that  he  is  aware  that  you  are  conspiring 
to  organise  resistance  and  riot." 

A  great  shock  struck  Adone  as  he  heard;  he 


28 o  The  Waters  of  Edera 

felt  as  if  an  electric  charge  had  passed  through 
him.  He  had  believed  his  secret  to  be  as  abso- 
lutely unknown  as  the  graves  of  the  lucomone 
under  the  ivy  by  the  riverside." 

"  How  could  he  know  ?  "  he  stammered.  "  Who 
is  the  traitor  ?  " 

"  That  matters  little,"  said  Don  Silverio. 
"  What  matters  much  is,  that  all  you  do  and  de- 
sire to  do  is  written  down  at  the  Prefecture." 

Adone  was  sceptical.    He  laughed  harshly. 

"If  so,  sir,  why  do  they  not  arrest  me?  That 
would  be  easy  enough.  I  do  not  hide." 

"  Have  you  not  ofttimes  seen  a  birdcatcher 
spread  his  net?  Does  he  seize  the  first  bird  which 
approaches  it?  He  is  not  so  unwise.  He  waits 
until  all  the  feathered  innocents  are  in  the  meshes : 
then  he  fills  his  sack.  That  is  how  the  govern- 
ment acts  always.  It  gives  its  enemies  full  rope 
to  hang  themselves.  It  is  cold  of  blood,  and  slow, 
and  sure." 

"  You  say  this  to  scare  me,  to  make  me  desist." 

"  I  say  it  because  it  is  the  truth ;  and  if  you 
were  not  a  boy,  blind  with  rage  and  unreason,  you 
would  long  since  have  known  that  such  actions  as 
yours,  in  rousing  or  trying  to  rouse  the  peasants 
of  the  Val  d'Edera,  must  come  to  the  ear  of  the 
authorities.  Do  not  mistake.  They  let  you  alone 
as  yet,  not  because  they  love  you  or  fear  you ;  but 
because  they  are  too  cunning  and  too  wise  to 
touch  the  pear  before  it  is  ripe," 


The  Waters  of  Edera  28 1 

Adone  was  silent.  He  was  not  convinced ;  and 
many  evil  thoughts  were  black  within  his  brain. 
His  first  quarrel  with  a  mother  he  adored  had  in- 
tensified all  the  desperate  ferocity  awake  in  him. 

"  You  are  as  blind  as  a  mole,"  said  Don  Sil- 
verio,  "  but  you  have  not  the  skill  of  the  mole  in 
constructing  its  hidden  galleries.  You  scatter  your 
secrets  broadcast  as  you  scatter  grain  over  your 
ploughed  field.  You  think  it  is  enough  to  choose 
a  moonless  night  for  you  and  your  companions-in- 
arms to  be  seen  by  no  living  creature !  Does  the 
stoat,  does  the  wild  cat,  make  such  a  mistake  as 
that?  If  you  make-war  on  the  State,  study  the 
ways  of  your  foe.  Realise  that  it  has  as  many 
eyes,  as  many  ears,  as  many  feet  as  the  pagan 
god;  that  its  arm  is  as  long  as  its  craft,  that  it 
has  behind  it  unscrupulous  force  and  unlimited 
gold,  and  the  support  of  all  those  who  only  want 
to  pursue  their  making  of  wealth  in  ease  and  in 
peace.  Do  you  imagine  you  can  meet  and  beat 
such  antagonists  with  a  few  rusty  muskets,  a  few 
beardless  boys,  a  poor  little  girl  like  Nerina  ?  " 

Don  Silverio's  voice  was  curt,  imperious,  sar- 
donic; his  sentences  cut  like  whips;  then  after  a 
moment  of  silence  his  tone  changed  to  an  infinite 
softness  and  sweetness  of  pleading  and  persua- 
sion. 

"  My  son,  my  dear  son !  cease  to  live  in  this 
dream  of  impossible  issues.  Wake  to  the  brutality 
of  fact,  to  the  nakedness  of  truth,  You  have  to 


282  The  Waters  of  Edera 

suffer  a  great  wrong;  but  will  you  be  consoled 
for  it  by  the  knowledge  that  you  have  led  to  the 
slaughter  men  whom  you  have  known  from  your 
infancy?  It  can  but  end  in  one  way — your  con- 
flict with  the  power  of  the  State.  You  and  those 
who  have  listened  to  you  will  be  shot  down  with- 
out mercy,  or  flung  into  prison,  or  driven  to  lead 
the  life  of  tracked  beasts  in  the  woods.  There  is 
no  other  possible  end  to  the  rising  which  you  are 
trying  to  bring  about.  If  you  have  no  pity  for 
your  mother,  have  pity  on  your  comrades,  for  the 
women  who  bore  them,  for  the  women  who  love 
them." 

Adone  quivered  with  breathless  fury  as  he 
heard.  All  the  blackness  of  his  soul  gathered 
into  a  storm  of  rage,  burst  forth  in  shameful  doubt 
and  insult.  He  set  his  teeth,  and  his  voice  hissed 
through  them,  losing  all  its  natural  music. 

"  Sir,  your  clients  are  men  in  high  place;  mine 
are  my  miserable  brethren.  You  take  the  side  of 
the  rich  and  powerful ;  I  take  that  of  the  poor  and 
the  robbed.  Maybe  your  reverence  has  deemed  it 
your  duty  to  tell  the  authorities  that  which  you 
say  they  have  learned?  " 

A  knife  through  his  breast-bone  would  have 
given  a  kindlier  wound  to  his  hearer.  Amaze- 
ment under  such  an  outrage  was  stronger  in  Don 
Silverio  than  any  other  feeling  for  the  first  mo- 
ment, Adone — Adone ! — his  scholar,  his  beloved, 


The  Waters  of  Edera  283 

his  disciple ! — spoke  to  him  thus !  Then  an  over- 
whelming disgust  and  scorn  swept  over  him,  and 
was  stronger  than  his  pain.  He  could  have 
stricken  the  ungrateful  youth  to  the  earth.  The 
muscles  of  his  right  arm  swelled  and  throbbed; 
then,  with  an  intense  effort,  he  controlled  the  im- 
pulse to  avenge.  Without  a  word,  and  with  one 
glance  of  reproach  and  of  disdain,  he  turned  away 
and  went  through  the  morning  shadows  under 
the  drooping  and  laden  apple  boughs. 

Adone,  with  his  teeth  set  hard  and  his  eyes 
filled  with  savage  fire,  sprang  down  into  the  trench 
and  resumed  his  work. 

He  was  impenitent. 

"  He  is  mad !  He  knows  not  what  he  says !  " 
thought  the  man  whom  he  had  insulted.  But 
though  he  strove  to  excuse  the  outrage  it  was  like 
a  poisoned  blade  in  his  flesh. 

Adone  could  suspect  him !  Adone  could  believe 
him  to  be  an  informer ! 

Was  this  all  the  recompense  for  eighteen  years 
of  unwearying  affection,  patience,  and  tuition? 
Though  the  whole  world  had  witnessed  against 
him,  he  would  have  sworn  that  Adone  Alba 
would  have  been  faithful  to  him. 

"  He  is  mad,"  he  thought.  "  His  first  great 
wrong  turns  his  blood  to  poison.  He  will  come 
to  me  weeping  to-morrow." 

But  he  knew  that  what  Adone  had  said  to  him, 


284  The  Waters  of  Edera 

however  repented  of,  however  washed  away  with 
tears,  was  one  of  those  injuries  which  may  be 
forgiven,  but  can  never  be  forgotten,  by  any  living 
man.  It  would  yawn  like  a  pit  between  them  for 
ever. 


XVII 

To  this  apple-tree  field  there  was  a  high  hedge 
of  luxuriant  elder  and  ash,  myrtle  and  field-roses. 
Behind  this  hedge  old  Gianna  was  waiting  for 
him ;  the  tears  were  running  down  her  face.  She 
took  the  skirt  of  his  coat  between  her  hands. 
"  Wait,  your  reverence,  wait !  The  child  is  in  the 
cattle  stable." 

Don  Silverio  looked  down  on  her  a  few  mo- 
ments without  comprehension.  Then  he  remem- 
bered. 

"  Is  she  there  indeed  ?  Poor  little  soul !  She 
must  not  go  to  the  house." 

"  She  does  not  dream  of  it,  Sir.  Only  she  can- 
not understand  why  Madonna  Clelia's  anger  is  so 
terrible.  What  can  I  do oh,  Lord !  " 

"  Keep  her  where  she  is  for  the  present.  I  am 
going  home.  I  will  speak  with  some  of  the  women 
in  Ruscino,  and  find  her  some  temporary  shelter." 

"  She  will  go  to  none,  sir.  She  says  she  must 
be  where  she  can  serve  Adone.  If  she  be  shut  up, 
she  will  escape  and  run  into  the  woods.  Three 
years  ago  she  was  a  wild  thing ;  she  will  turn  wild 
again." 

285 


286  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  Like  enough !  But  we  must  do  what  we  can. 
I  am  going  home.  I  will  come  or  send  to  you  in 
a  few  hours." 

Gianna  reluctantly  let  him  go.  As  he  crossed 
the  river  he  looked  down  on  the  bright  water,  here 
green  as  emeralds,  there  brown  as  peat,  eddying 
round  the  old  stone  piers  of  the  bridge,  and  an 
infinite  sorrow  was  on  him. 

As  a  forest  fire  sweeps  away  under  its  rolling 
smoke  and  waves  of  flame  millions  of  obscure  and 
harmless  creatures,  so  the  baneful  fires  of  men's 
greed  and  speculations  came  from  afar  and  laid 
low  these  harmless  lives  with  neither  thought  of 
them  or  pity. 

Later  in  the  day  he  sent  word  to  Gianna  to 
bring  Nerina  to  the  presbytery.  They  both  came, 
obedient.  The  child  looked  tired  and  had  lost  her 
bright  colour ;  but  she  had  a  resolute  look  on  her 
face. 

"  My  poor  little  girl,"  he  said  gently  to  her, 
"  Madonna  Clelia  is  angered  against  you.  We 
will  hope  her  anger  will  pass  ere  long.  Mean- 
while you  must  not  go  to  the  house.  You  would 
not  make  ill-blood  between  a  mother  and  her 
son?" 

"  No,"  said  Nerina. 

"  I  have  found  a  home  for  awhile  for  you,  with 
old  Alaida  Manzi ;  you  know  her ;  she  is  a  good 


The  Waters  of  Edera  287 

creature.  I  am  very  sorry  for  you,  my  child; 
but  you  did  wrong  to  be  absent  at  night;  above 
all  not  to  go  back  to  your  chamber  when  Clelia 
Alba  bade  you  do  so." 

Nerina's  face  darkened.    "  I  did  no  harm." 

"  I  am  sure  you  did  not  mean  to  do  any ;  but 
you  disobeyed  Madonna  Clelia." 

Nerina  was  silent. 

"  You  are  a  young  girl ;  you  must  not  roam  the 
country  at  night.  It  is  most  perilous.  Decent 
maidens  and  women  are  never  abroad  after  moon- 
rise." 

Nerina  said  nothing. 

"  You  will  promise  me  never  to  go  out  at  night 
again  ?  " 

"  I  cannot  promise  that,  sir." 

"Why?" 

"  If  I  be  wanted,  I  shall  go." 

"  If  Adone  Alba  bid  you — is  that  your  mean- 
ing?" 

Nerina  was  silent. 

"  Do  you  think  that  it  is  fitting  for  you  to  have 
secrets  from  me,  your  confessor  ?  " 

Nerina  was  silent:  her  rosy  mouth  was  closed 
firmly.  It  was  very  terrible  to  have  to  displease 
and  disobey  Don  Silverio;  but  she  would  not 
speak,  not  if  she  should  burn  in  everlasting  flames 
for  ever. 


288  The  Waters  of  Edera 

"  Take  her  away.  Take  her  to  Alaida,"  he  said 
wearily  to  Gianna. 

"  She  only  obeys  Adone,  sir,"  said  the  old 
woman.  "  All  I  can  say  counts  as  naught." 

"  Adone  will  send  her  on  no  more  midnight 
errands,  unless  he  be  brute  and  fool  both.  Take 
her  away.  Look  to  her,  you  and  Alaida." 

"  I  will  do  what  I  can,  sir,"  said  Gianna  hum- 
bly, and  pushed  the  girl  out  into  the  village  street 
before  her. 

Don  Silverio  sat  down  at  his  deal  writing-table 
and  wrote  in  his  fine,  clear  caligraphy  a  few  lines : 
"In  the  name  of  my  holy  office  I  forbid  you  to 
risk  the  life  and  good  name  of  the  maiden  Nerina 
on  your  unlawful  errands" 

Then  he  signed  and  sealed  the  sheet,  and  sent 
it  by  his  sacristan  to  Adone. 

He  received  no  answer. 

The  night  which  followed  was  one  of  the  most 
bitter  in  its  meditations  that  he  had  ever  spent; 
and  he  had  spent  many  cruel  and  sleepless  nights 
ere  then. 

That  Adone  could  for  one  fleeting  moment 
have  harboured  so  vile  a  thought  filled  him  with 
nausea  and  amaze.  Betray  them!  He! — who 
would  willingly  have  given  up  such  years  of  life 
as  might  remain  to  him  could  he  by  such  a  sac- 
rifice have  saved  their  river  and  their  valley  from 


The  Waters  of  Edera  289 

destruction.  There  was  nothing  short  of  vice  or 
crime  which  he  would  not  have  done  to  save  the 
Edera  water  from  its  fate.  But  it  was  utterly 
impossible  to  do  anything.  Even  men  of  eminence 
had  often  brought  all  their  forces  of  wealth  and 
of  argument  against  similar  enterprises,  and  had 
failed  in  their  opposition.  What  could  a  few 
score  of  peasants,  and  one  poor  ecclesiastic,  do 
against  all  the  omnipotence  of  Parliament,  of  mil- 
lionaires, of  secretaries  of  State,  of  speculators,  of 
promoters,  tenacious  and  forcible  and  ravenous  as 
the  octopus? 

In  those  lonely  night  hours  when  the  moon- 
beams shone  on  his  bed  and  the  little  white  dog 
nestled  itself  close  to  his  shoulder,  he  was  tortured 
also  by  the  sense  that  it  was  his  duty  to  arrest 
Adone  and  the  men  of  the  Vald'edera  in  their  mad 
course,  even  at  the  price  of  such  treachery  to 
them  as  Adone  had  dared  to  attribute  to  him. 
But  if  that  were  his  duty  it  must  be  his  first 
duty  which  consciously  he  had  left  undone ! 

If  he  could  only  stop  them  on  their  headlong 
folly  by  betraying  them  they  must  rush  on  to  their 
doom! 

He  saw  no  light,  no  hope,  no  assistance  any- 
where. These  lads  would  not  be  able  to  save 
a  single  branch  of  the  river  water,  nor  a  sword- 
rush  on  its  banks,  nor  a  moorhen  in  its  shallows, 


290  The  Waters  of  Edera 

nor  a  cluster  of  myosotis  upon  its  banks,  and  they 
would  ruin  themselves. 

The  round  golden  moon  shone  between  the 
budding  vine-leaves  at  his  casement. 

"  Are  you  not  tired  ?  "  he  said  to  the  shining 
orb.  "  Are  you  not  tired  of  watching  the  endless 
cruelties  and  insanities  on  earth  ?  " 


XVIII 

THE  people  of  Ruscino  went  early  to  their  beds ; 
the  light  of  the  oil-wicks  of  the  Presbytery  was 
always  the  only  light  in  the  village  half  an  hour 
after  dark.  Nerina  went  uncomplainingly  to  hers 
in  the  dark  stone  house  within  the  walls  where 
she  had  been  told  that  it  was  her  lot  to  dwell. 
She  did  not  break  her  fast;  she  drank  great 
draughts  of  water;  then,  with  no  word  except  a 
brief  good-night,  she  went  to  the  sacking  filled 
with  leaves  which  the  old  woman  Alaida  pointed 
out  for  her  occupancy. 

"  She  is  soon  reconciled,  "  thought  the  old 
crone.  "  They  have  trained  her  well.  " 

Relieved  of  all  anxiety,  she  herself  lay  down 
in  the  dark  and  slept.  The  girl  seemed  a  good, 
quiet,  tame  little  thing,  and  said  her  paternosters  as 
she  should  do.  But  Nerina  did  not  sleep.  She  was 
stifled  in  this  little  close  room  with  its  one  shut- 
tered window.  She  who  was  used  to  sleep  with 
the  fresh  fragrant  air  of  the  dark  fields  blowing 
over  her  in  her  loft,  felt  the  sour,  stagnant 
atmosphere  take  her  like  a  hand  by  the  throat. 
291 


292  The  Waters  of  Edera 

As  soon  as  she  heard  by  the  heavy  breathing  of 
the  aged  woman  that  she  was  sunk  in  the  con- 
gested slumber  of  old  age  the  child  got  up  nois- 
lessly — she  had  not  undressed — and  stole  out  of 
the  chamber,  taking  the  door  key  from  the  nail  on 
which  Alaida  had  hung  it.  A  short  stone  stair 
led  down  to  the  entrance.  No  one  else  was  sleep- 
ing in  the  house;  all  was  dark,  and  she  had  not 
even  a  match  or  a  tinder-box ;  but  she  felt  her  way 
to  the  outer  door,  unlocked  it,  as  she  had  been 
used  to  unlock  the  door  at  the  Terra  Vergine,  and 
in  another  moment  ran  down  the  steep  and  stony 
street.  She  laughed  as  the  wind  from  the  river 
blew  against  her  lips,  and  brought  her  the  fra- 
grance of  Adone's  autumn  fields. 

"  I  shall  be  in  time ! "  she  thought,  as  she  ran 
down  a  short  cut  which  led,  in  a  breakneck  de- 
scent, over  the  slope  of  what  had  once  been  the 
glacis  of  the  fortress,  beneath  the  Rocca  to  the 
bridge. 

The  usual  spot  for  the  assembly  of  the  mal- 
contents was  a  grassy  hollow  surrounded  on  all 
sides  with  woods,  and  called  the  tomb  of  Asdrubal, 
from  a  mound  of  masonry  which  bore  that  name ; 
although  it  was  utterly  improbable  that  Asdrubal 
who  had  been  slain  a  hundred  miles  to  the  north- 
east on  the  Marecchia  water,  should  have  been 
buried  in  the  Vald'edera  at  all ;  but  the  place  and 
the  name  were  well  known  in  the  district  to  hun- 


The  Waters  of  Edera  293 

dreds  of  peasants,  who  knew  no  more  who  or 
what  Asdrubal  had  been  than  they  knew  the  names 
of  the  stars  which  form  the  constellation  of  Per- 
seus. 

Adone  had  summoned  them  to  be  there  by  mid- 
night, and  he  was  passing  from  the  confines  of  his 
own  lands  on  to  those  of  the  open  moors  when  the 
child  saw  him.  He  was  dressed  in  his  working 
clothes,  but  he  was  fully  armed:  his  gun  on  his 
shoulder,  his  great  pistols  in  his  sash,  his  dagger 
in  his  stocking.  They  were  ancient  arms;  but 
they  had  served  in  matters  of  life  and  death,  and 
would  so  serve  again.  On  the  three-edged  blade 
of  the  sixteenth-century  poignard  was  a  blood- 
stain more  than  a  century  old  which  nothing 
would  efface. 

"  Nerina ! "  he  cried,  and  was  more  distressed 
than  pleased  to  see  her  there ;  he  had  not  thought 
of  her. 

In  the  moonlight  and  the  silvery  olive  foliage 
her  little  sunburnt  face  and  figure  took  a  softer 
and  more  feminine  grace.  But  Adone  had  no 
sight  for  it.  For  him  she  was  but  a  sturdy  little 
pony,  who  would  trot  till  she  dropped. 

He  was  cruel  as  those  who  are  possessed  by 
one  intense  and  absorbing  purpose  always  are :  he 
was  cruel  to  Nerina  as  Garibaldi,  in  the  days  of 
Ravenna,  was  cruel  to  Anita. 

But  through  that  intense  egotism  which  sees 


294  The  Waters  of  Edera 

in  all  the  world  only  its  own  cause,  its  own  end, 
its  own  misery,  there  touched  him  for  one  instant 
an  unselfish  pity  for  the  child  of  whom  he  had 
made  so  mercilessly  his  servant  and  his  slave. 

"  Poor  little  girl!  I  have  been  hard  to  you,  I 
have  been  cruel  and  unfair,"  he  said,  as  a  vague 
sense  of  her  infinite  devotion  to  him  moved  him 
as  a  man  may  be  moved  by  a  dog's  fidelity. 

"  You  have  been  good  to  me,"  said  Nerina ;  and 
from  the  bottom  of  her  heart  she  thought  so.  "  I 
came  to  see  if  you  wanted  me,"  she  added  humbly. 

"  No,  no.  They  think  ill  of  you  for  going  my 
errands.  Poor  child,  I  have  done  you  harm 
enough.  I  will  not  do  you  more." 

"  You  have  done  me  only  good." 

"  What !  When  my  mother  has  turned  you  out 
of  the  house !  " 

"  It  is  her  right." 

"  Let  it  be  so  for  a  moment.  You  shall  come 
back.  You  are  with  old  Alaida  ?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  How  can  you  be  out  to-night  ?  " 

"  She  sleeps  heavily,  and  the  lock  is  not  hard." 

"  You  are  a  brave  child." 

"  Is  there  nothing  to  do  to-night  ?  " 

"  No,  dear." 

"  Where  do  you  go?  " 

"  To  meet  the  men  at  the  tomb  of  Asdrubal." 

"  Who  summoned  them  ?  " 


The  Waters  of  Edera  295 

"  I  myself.  You  must  be  sad  and  sorry,  child, 
and  it  is  my  fault." 

She  checked  a  sob  in  her  throat.  "  I  am  not 
far  away,  and  old  Alaida  is  kind.  Let  me  go  on 
some  errand  to-night?  " 

"  No,  my  dear,  I  cannot." 

He  recalled  the  words  of  the  message  which  he 
had  received  from  Don  Silverio  that  day.  He 
knew  the  justice  of  this  message,  he  knew  that  it 
only  forbade  him  what  all  humanity,  hospitality, 
manhood,  and  compassion  forbade  to  him.  One 
terrible  passion  had  warped  his  nature,  closed  his 
heart,  and  invaded  his  reason  to  the  exclusion  of 
all  other  thoughts  or  instincts ;  but  he  was  not  yet 
so  lost  to  shame  as,  now  that  he  knew  what  he  had 
done,  to  send  out  a  female  creature  into  peril  to  do 
his  bidding. 

"  Tell  me,  then,  tell  me,  when  will  anything  be 
done?" 

"  Whenever  the  labourers  come  to  work  on  the 
water  we  shall  drive  them  away." 

"  But  if  they  will  not  go?  " 

"  Child,  the  river  is  deep ;  we  know  its  ways 
and  its  soundings ;  they  do  not." 

Her  great  bright  eyes  flashed  fire:  an  unholy 
joy  laughed  in  them. 

"  We  will  baptize  them  over  again !  "  she  said ; 
and  all  her  face  laughed  and  sparkled  in  the  moon- 
light. There  was  fierce  mountain  blood  in  her 


296  The  Waters  of  Edera 

veins ;  it  grew  hot  at  the  thought  of  slaughter  like 
the  juice  of  grapes  warmed  in  an  August  noon. 

He  laughed  also,  savagely.  "  Their  blood  will 
be  on  their  own  heads !  " 

He  meant  to  drive  them  out,  swamp  them  in 
the  stream,  choke  them  in  the  sand,  hunt  them  in 
the  heather ;  make  every  man  of  them  rue  the  day 
that  ever  they  came  thither  to  meddle  with  the 
Edera  water. 

"  Curse  them !  Their  blood  will  be  on  their  own 
heads !  "  he  said  between  his  teeth.  He  was  think- 
ing of  the  strange  men  who  it  was  said  would  b« 
at  work  on  the  land  and  the  water  before  the 
moon,  young  now,  should  be  in  her  last  quarter; 
men  hired  by  the  hundreds,  day  labourers  of  the 
Romagna  and  the  Puglia,  leased  by  contract,  mar- 
shalled under  overseers,  different  in  nothing  from 
slaves  who  groan  under  the  white  man's  lash  in 
Africa. 

As  he  went  on  along  the  path  which  led  through 
his  own  fields  to  the  moors,  his  soul  was  dark  as 
night;  it  enraged  him  to  have  been  forced  by  his 
conscience  and  his  honour  to  obey  the  command 
of  Don  Silverio. 

"  No,  no,"  he  said  sternly.  "  Get  you  back  to 
your  rest  at  Ruscino.  I  did  wrong,  I  did  basely 
to  use  your  ignorance  and  abuse  your  obedience. 
Get  you  gone,  and  listen  to  your  priest,  not  to 
me," 


The  Waters  of  Edera  297 

The  child,  ever  obedient,  vanished  through  the 
olive  boughs.  Adone  went  onward  northward  to 
his  tryst. 

But  she  did  not  go  over  the  bridge.  She  waited 
a  little  while  then  followed  on  his  track.  Gianna 
was  right.  She  was  a  wild  bird.  She  had  been 
caught  and  tamed  for  a  time,  but  she  was  always 
wild.  The  life  which  they  had  given  her  had  been 
precious  and  sweet  to  her,  and  she  had  learned 
willingly  all  its  ways;  but  at  the  bottom  of  her 
heart  the  love  of  liberty,  the  love  of  movement, 
the  love  of  air  and  sky  and  freedom  were  stronger 
than  all.  She  was  of  an  adventurous  temper  also, 
and  brave  like  all  Abruzzese,  and  she  longed  to 
see  one  of  those  moonlit  midnight  meetings  of 
armed  men  to  which  she  had  so  often  borne  the 
summons.  Now  that  she  had  escaped  from  Alai- 
da's  she  could  not  have  forced  herself  to  go  back 
out  of  this  clear,  cool,  radiant,  night  into  the  little, 
close,  dark,  sleeping-chamber.  No,  not  if  Don  Sil- 
verio  himself  had  stood  in  her  path  with  the  cross 
raised. 

She  doubled  like  a  hare,  and  came  out  on  to  the 
path  which  Adone  had  taken,  and  within  a  few 
yards  of  him,  ready  to  hide  herself  in  the  furze 
and  broom  if  he  turned  his  head.  But  he  did  not 
do  so;  he  went  straight  onward. 

She  knew  the  way  to  the  tomb  of  Asdrubal, 
even  in  the  darkness,  as  well  as  he  did.  It  was  a 


298  The  Waters  of  Edera 

grassy  hollow  surrounded  by  dense  trees,  some 
five  miles  or  more  from  the  Terra  Vergine,  on  the 
north  bank  of  the  river.  The  flat,  grassy  solitude 
was  clear  enough  and  large  enough  to  permit  the 
assemblage  of  several  scores  of  men ;  it  was  the 
spot  generally  chosen  for  these  armed  meetings. 

Adone  went  on,  unconscious  that  he  was  fol- 
lowed; he  went  at  a  swing  trot,  easy,  and  swift; 
the  sinews  of  his  lithe  limbs  were  strong  as  steel, 
and  his  rage,  all  aflame,  lent  lightning  to  his  feet. 

She  allowed  Adone  to  precede  her  by  half  a 
mile  or  more,  for  if  he  had  seen  her  his  anger 
would  have  been  great,  and  she  feared  it.  She 
went  skipping  and  bounding  along  where  the  path 
was  clear  in  all  the  joy  of  liberty  and  rapture  of 
the  fresh  night  air.  The  hours  spent  in  Alaida's 
close  house  in  the  village  had  been  as  terrible  to 
her  as  his  hours  in  a  birdcatcher's  hamper  are  to 
a  wild  bird.  Up  at  Ansalda  she  had  always  been 
out  of  doors,  and  here  at  the  Terra  Vergine  she 
had  gone  under  a  roof  only  to  eat  and  sleep. 

The  moon  which  was  in  the  beginning  of  its 
first  quarter  had  passed  behind  the  hills ;  there  was 
little  light,  for  there  were  as  yet  few  stars  visible, 
but  that  was  no  matter  to  her.  She  knew  her  way 
as  well  as  any  mountain  hare. 

The  pungent  odour  of  the  heaths  through  which 
she  went  seemed  to  her  like  a  draught  of  wine,  the 
strong  sea  breeze  which  was  blowing  bore  her  up 


The  Waters  of  Edera  299 

like  wings.  She  forgot  that  she  was  once  more  a 
homeless  waif,  as  she  had  been  that  day  when  she 
had  sat  under  the  dock  leaves  by  the  Edera  water. 
He  had  told  her  she  should  go  back ;  she  believed 
him :  that  was  enough.  Madonna  Clelia  would 
forgive,  for  what  harm  had  she  done  ?  All  would 
be  well;  she  would  feed  the  oxen  again,  and  go 
again  to  the  spring  for  water,  and  all  would  be  as 
it  had  been  before — her  thoughts,  her  desires, 
went  no  farther  than  that.  And  she  went  on 
gaily,  running  where  there  was  open  ground, 
pushing  hard  where  the  heather  grew,  going  al- 
ways in  the  same  path  as  Adone  had  done.  All 
of  a  sudden  she  stopped  short,  in  alarm.  The 
night  was  still ;  the  rushing  of  the  river  was  loud 
upon  it,  the  owls  hooted  and  chuckled,  now  and 
then  a  fox  in  the  thickets  barked.  There  are  many 
sounds  in  the  open  country  at  night;  sounds  of 
whirring  pinions,  of  stealthy  feet,  of  shrill,  lone 
cries,  of  breaking  twigs,  of  breaking  ferns,  of  lit- 
tle rivulets  unheard  by  day,  of  timid  creatures  tak- 
ing courage  in  the  dark.  But  to  these  sounds  she 
was  used ;  she  could  give  a  name  to  every  one  of 
them.  She  heard  now  what  was  unfamiliar  to  her 
in  these  solitudes ;  she  heard  the  footsteps  of  men ; 
and  it  seemed  to  her,  all  around  her,  as  though  in 
a  moment  of  time,  the  heath  and  bracken  and  furze 
grew  alive  with  them.  Were  they  men  of  Ruscino 
going  to  their  tryst  with  Adone?  She  did  not 


300  The  Waters  of  Edera 

think  so,  for  she  had  never  known  the  few  men 
in  the  village  summon  courage  to  join  the  armed 
meetings  of  the  men  of  the  valley.  She  stopped 
and  listened,  as  a  pole-cat  which  was  near  her  did ; 
the  sounds  were  those  of  human  beings,  breath- 
ing, creeping,  moving  under  the  heather. 

Suddenly  she  felt  some  presence  close  to  her  in 
the  dark;  she  held  her  breath;  she  shrank  noise- 
lessly between  the  plumes  of  heath.  If  they  were 
men  of  the  country  they  would  not  hurt  her,  but 
if  not — she  was  not  sure. 

Near  her  was  an  open  space  where  the  heather 
had  been  recently  cut.  The  men  debouched  on  to 
it  from  the  undergrowth;  there  was  a  faint  light 
from  the  stars  on  that  strip  of  rough  grass;  she 
saw  that  they  were  soldiers,  five  in  number. 

A  great  terror  cowed  her  like  a  hand  of  ice  at 
her  heart,  a  terror  not  for  herself,  but  for  those 
away  there,  in  the  hollow  bed  by  the  three  stone- 
pines. 

They  were  soldiers ;  yes,  they  were  soldiers ;  the 
sounds  she  had  heard  had  been  the  crushing  of  the 
plants  under  their  feet,  the  click  of  their  muskets 
as  they  moved;  they  were  soldiers!  Where  had 
they  come  from  ?  There  were  no  soldiers  at  Rus- 
cino. 

The  only  time  when  she  had  ever  seen  soldiers 
had  been  when  the  troopers  had  captured  Baruffo. 
These  were  not  troopers;  they  were  small  men, 
on  foot,  linen-clad,  moving  stealthily,  and  as  if  in 


The  Waters  of  Edera  301 

fear ;  only  the  tubes  of  their  muskets  glistened  in 
the  light  of  the  great  planets. 

She  crouched  down  lower  and  lower,  trying  to 
enter  the  ground  and  hide ;  she  hoped  they  would 
go  onward,  and  then  she  could  run — faster  than 
they — and  reach  the  hollow,  and  warn  Adone  and 
his  fellows.  She  had  no  doubt  that  they  came  to 
surprise  the  meeting;  but  she  hoped  from  their 
pauses  and  hesitating  steps  that  they  were  uncer- 
tain what  way  to  take. 

"  If  you  come  to  me  to  lead  you — aye !  I  will 
lead  you ! — you  will  not  forget  where  I  lead !  " 
she  said  to  herself,  as  she  hid  under  the  heather; 
and  her  courage  rose,  for  she  saw  a  deed  to  be 
done.  For  they  were  now  very  near  to  the  place 
of  meeting,  and  could  have  taken  the  rebels  in  a 
trap,  if  they  had  only  known  where  they  were; 
but  she,  watching  them  stand  still,  and  stare,  and 
look  up  to  the  stars,  and  then  north,  south,  east, 
and  west,  saw  that  they  did  not  know,  and  that 
it  might  be  possible  to  lead  them  away  from  the 
spot  by  artifice,  as  the  quail  leads  the  sportsman 
away  from  the  place  where  her  nest  is  hidden. 

As  the  thought  took  shape  in  her  brain  a  sixth 
man,  a  sergeant  who  commanded  them,  touched 
her  with  his  foot,  stooped,  clutched  her,  and  pulled 
her  upward.  She  did  not  try  to  escape. 

"  What  beast  of  night  have  we  here  ?  "  he  cried. 
"  Spawn  of  devils,  who  are  you  ?  " 

Nerina  writhed  under  the  grip  of  his  iron  fin- 


302  The  Waters  of  Edera 

gers,  but  she  still  did  not  try  to  escape.  He  cursed 
her,  swore  at  her,  shook  her,  crushed  her  arm 
black  and  blue.  She  was  sick  with  pain,  but  she 
was  mute. 

"  Who  are  you  ?  "  he  shouted. 

"  I  come  down  from  the  mountains  to  work  here 
in  summer." 

"  Can  any  of  you  speak  the  dialect  ?  "  cried  the 
sergeant  to  his  privates. 

One  man  answered,  "  I  come  from  Monte 
Corno;  it  is  much  the  same  tongue  there  as  in 
these  parts." 

"  Ask  her  the  way,  then." 

The  soldier  obeyed. 

"  What  is  the  way  to  the  Three  Pines? — to  the 
tomb  of  Asdrubal  ?  " 

"  The  way  is  long,"  said  Nerina. 

"  Do  you  know  it?  " 

"  I  know  it." 

"  Have  you  heard  tell  of  it?  " 

"Yes." 

"  That  men  meet  at  night  there?  " 

"Yes." 

"  Meet  this  night  there?  " 

"  Yes." 

"  You  know  where  the  tomb  of  Asdrubal  is  ?  " 

"Have  I  not  told  you?" 

The  soldier  repeated  her  answer  translated  to 
his  sergeant ;  the  latter  kept  his  grasp  on  her. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  303 

"  Ask  her  if  she  will  take  us  there." 

The  soldier  asked  her  and  translated  her  an- 
swer. 

"  If  we  give  her  two  gold  pieces  she  will  take  us 
there." 

"  Spawn  of  hell !  I  will  give  her  nothing.  But 
if  she  do  not  lead  us  aright  I  will  give  her  a  bullet 
for  her  breakfast." 

The  soldier  translated  to  Nerina :  "  He  will  give 
you  two  gold  pieces  if  you  guide  us  aright;  and 
you  need  have  no  fear ;  we  are  honest  men  and  the 
king's  servants." 

"  I  will  guide  the  king's  servants,"  said  Nerina. 

"  You  are  sure  of  the  way  ?  " 

"  Is  the  homing  pigeon  sure  of  his?  " 

"  Let  us  be  off,"  said  the  sergeant.  "  A  bullet 
for  her  if  she  fail." 

He  had  little  pleasure  in  trusting  to  this  girl  of 
the  Abruzzi  hills,  but  he  and  his  men  were  lost 
upon  these  moors,  and  might  grope  all  night,  and 
miss  the  meeting,  and  fail  to  surprise  those  who 
gathered  at  it.  He  reckoned  upon  fear  as  a  sure 
agent  to  keep  her  true,  as  it  kept  his  conscripts 
under  arms. 

"  Bid  him  take  his  hand  off  me,"  said  Nerina, 
"  or  I  do  not  move." 

The  private  translated  to  his  superior.  "  She 
prays  of  your  mercy  to  leave  her  free,  as  she  can- 
not pass  through  the  heather." 


304  The  Waters  of  Edera 

The  sergeant  let  her  go  unwillingly,  but  pushed 
her  in  front  of  him,  and  levelled  his  revolver  at 
her. 

"  Tell  her  if  she  try  to  get  away  I  fire." 

"  Tell  him  I  know  that,"  said  Nerina. 

She  was  not  afraid,  for  a  fierce,  unholy  joy  was 
in  her  veins ;  she  could  have  sung,  she  could  have 
laughed,  she  could  have  danced ;  she  held  them  in 
her  power ;  they  had  come  to  ensnare  Adone,  and 
she  had  got  them  in  her  power  as  if  they  were  so 
many  moles ! 

They  tied  her  hands  behind  her;  she  let  them 
do  it;  she  did  not  want  her  hands.  Then  she  be- 
gan to  push  her  way  doggedly  with  her  head  down 
to  the  south.  The  tomb  of  Asdrubal  was  due 
north ;  she  could  see  the  pole  star,  and  turned  her 
back  to  it  and  went  due  south. 

Three  miles  or  more  southward  there  was  a 
large  pollino,  or  swamp  known  as  L'Erba  Molle, 
the  wet  grass ;  the  grass  was  luxuriant,  the  flora 
was  varied  and  beautiful ;  in  appearance  it  was  a 
field,  in  reality  it  was  a  morass ;  to  all  people  of  the 
Vald'edera  it  was  dreaded  and  avoided,  as  quick- 
sands are  by  the  seashore. 

She  went  on  as  fast  as  the  narrow  path,  winding 
in  and  out  between  the  undergrowth,  permitted 
her  to  go;  with  the  armed  soldiers,  heavy  laden 
with  their  knapsacks  and  their  boots,  following 


The  Waters  of  Edera  305 

her  clumsily,  and  with  effort,  muttering  curses  on 
their  ill-luck  and  their  sleepless  night. 

The  stars  were  now  larger  and  brighter;  the 
darkness  was  lightened,  the  river  was  running 
away  from  its  southern  birthplace  in  the  hills 
which  lie  like  crouched  lions  about  the  feet  of  the 
Leonessa.  She  could  hear  its  distant  murmur. 
"  They  come  to  capture  you,"  she  said  to  it,  "  and 
I  will  kill  them.  They  shall  choke  and  go  down, 
down,  down " 

And  her  heart  leapt  within  her;  and  she  went 
with  the  loaded  revolver  pointed  at  her  from  be- 
hind as  though  she  went  to  her  bridal-bed. 

"  Where  are  you  taking  us,  vile  little  bitch  ?  " 
the  sergeant  cried,  and  the  soldier  from  the 
Abruzzi  translated :  "  Pretty  little  brown  one, 
whither  do  you  go  ?  " 

"  I  take  you  straight,"  said  Nerina,  "  only  you 
go  too  clumsily,  for  men  in  these  parts  should  not 
wear  leather  upon  their  feet." 

And  the  soldiers  sighed  assent,  and  would  will- 
ingly have  gone  barefoot,  and  the  sergeant  swore 
in  tones  of  thunder  because  he  could  not  under- 
stand what  she  said. 

Before  long  they  came  in  sight  of  the  Erba 
Molle;  the  wet  grass,  which  looked  like  a  fair, 
peaceful  pasture,  with  thousands  of  sword  rushes 
golden  upon  its  surface.  The  dawn  was  faint,  and 


306  The  Waters  of  Edera 

shone  upon  its  verdure ;  there  were  great  flocks  of 
water-birds  at  roost  around  it,  and  they  rose  with 
shrill  cries  and  great  noise  of  wings,  with  a  roar 
as  though  a  tide  were  rising. 

"  Pass  you  after  me,  and  set  your  feet  where  I 
set  mine,"  said  Nerina  to  the  little  soldier  of  the 
Abruzzi,  and  she  put  down  her  foot  on  the  first 
pile,  sunk  almost  invisible  under  the  bright  green 
slime. 

Across  it  stretched  a  line  of  wooden  piles  which 
served  as  stepping-stones  to  those  who  had  the 
courage  and  the  steadiness  to  leap  from  one  to 
another  of  them.  It  was  not  three  times  in  a  sea- 
son that  any  one  dared  to  do  so.  Adone  did  so 
sometimes;  and  he  had  taught  Nerina  how  to 
make  the  passage. 

The  swamp  was  of  a  brilliant  emerald  hue  from 
the  ooze  and  stagnant  waters  under  the  grass,  but 
in  aspect  it  seemed  a  smooth  meadow,  with  only 
the  ripple  of  the  grasses  like  that  of  a  green  lake 
to  disturb  its  surface ;  it  had  killed  many  who  had 
trusted  to  it. 

The  soldier  of  the  Abruzzi  said  to  his  superior, 
"  She  says  we  must  set  our  feet  where  she  sets 
hers.  We  are  quite  near  now  to  the  tomb  of  the 
barbarian." 

Nerina,  with  the  light  leap  of  a  kid,  bounded 
from  pile  to  pile.  They  thought  she  went  on  solid 
ground ;  on  meadow  grass.  The  sergeant  and  his 


The  Waters  of  Edera  307 

men  crowded  on  to  what  they  thought  was  pas- 
ture. In  the  uncertain  shadows  and  scarce  dawn- 
ing light,  they  did  not  see  the  row  of  submerged 
piles.  They  sank  like  stones  in  the  thick  ooze; 
they  were  sucked  under  to  their  knees,  to  their 
waists,  to  their  shoulders,  to  their  mouths;  the 
yielding  grasses,  the  clutching  slime,  the  tangled 
weed,  the  bottomless  mud,  took  hold  of  them ;  the 
water-birds  shrieked  and  beat  their  wings;  the 
hideous  clamor  of  dying  men  answered  them. 

Nerina  had  reached  the  other  side  of  the  morass 
in  safety,  and  her  mocking  laughter  rang  upon 
their  ears. 

"  I  have  led  you  well !  "  she  cried  to  them.  "  I 
have  led  you  well,  oh  servants  of  the  king!— -oh 
swine! — oh  slaves! — oh  spies!— oh  hunters  and 
butchers  of  men !  " 

And  she  danced  on  the  edge  of  the  field  of  death, 
and  the  rosy  light  of  the  sunrise  shone  on  her 
face. 

Had  she  run  onward  into  the  wood  beyond  she 
would  have  been  saved.  That  instant  of  triumph 
and  mockery  lost  her. 

The  sergeant  had  put  his  revolver  in  his  teeth ; 
he  knew  now  that  he  was  a  dead  man;  the  slime 
was  up  to  his  chin,  under  his  feet  the  grass  and 
the  mud  quaked,  yielded,  yawned  like  a  grave. 

He  drew  his  right  arm  out  of  the  ooze,  seized 
his  revolver,  and  aimed  at  the  dancing,  mocking, 


308  The  Waters  of  Edera 

triumphant  figure,  beyond  the  border  of  golden 
sword  rushes.  With  a  supreme  effort  he  fired; 
then  he  sank  under  the  mud  and  weed. 

The  child  dropped  dead  on  the  edge  of  the  mo- 
rass. 

One  by  one  each  soldier  sank.    Not  one  escaped. 

The  water-birds  came  back  from  their  upward 
flight  and  settled  again  on  the  swamp. 

Underneath  it  all  was  still. 


XIX 

DON  SILVERIO  rose  with  the  dawn  of  day,  and 
entered  his  church  at  five  of  the  clock.  There  were 
but  a  few  women  in  the  gaunt,  dark  vastness  of 
the  nave.  The  morning  was  hot,  and  the  scent  of 
ripe  fruit  and  fresh-cut  grass  came  in  from  the 
fields  over  the  broken  walls  and  into  the  ancient 
houses. 

When  mass  was  over,  old  Alaida  crept  over  the 
mouldy  mosaics  timidly  to  his  side,  and  kneeled 
down  on  the  stones. 

"  Most  reverend,"  she  whispered.  "  'Twas.not 
my  fault.  I  slept  heavily ;  she  must  have  unlocked 
the  door,  for  it  was  undone  at  dawn;  her  bed  is 
empty,  she  has  not  returned." 

"  You  speak  of  Nerina?  " 

"  Of  Nerina,  reverence.  I  did  all  I  could.  It 
was  not  my  fault.  She  was  like  a  hawk  in  a  cage." 

"  I  am  grieved,"  he  said ;  and  he  thought :  "  Is 
it  Adone?" 

He  feared  so. 

"  Is  she  not  at  the  Terra  Vergine  ?  "  he  asked. 
Alaida  shook  her  head. 

"  No,  reverend  sir.  I  sent  my  grandchild  to 
309 


3 1  o  The  Waters  of  Edera 

ask  there.  Gianna  has  not  seen  her,  and  says  the 
girl  would  never  dare  to  go  near  Clelia  Alba." 

"  I  am  grieved/'  said  Don  Silverio  again. 

He  did  not  blame  the  old  woman,  as  who,  he 
thought,  blames  one  who  could  not  tame  an 
eaglet  ? 

He  went  back  to  the  presbytery  and  broke  his 
fast  on  a  glass  of  water,  some  bread,  and  some 
cresses  from  the  river. 

He  had  sent  for  Gianna.  In  half  an  hour  she 
came,  distressed  and  frightened. 

"  Sir,  I  know  not  of  her ;  I  should  not  dare  to 
harbour  her,  even  in  the  cattle-stall.  Madonna 
Clelia  would  turn  me  adrift.  When  Madonna 
Clelia  has  once  spoken " 

"  Adone  is  at  home  ?  " 

"  Alas !  no,  sir.  He  went  out  at  midnight ;  we 
have  not  seen  him  since.  He  told  me  he  went  to 
a  meeting  of  men  at  the  Three  Pines,  at  what  they 
call  the  Tomb  of  the  Barbarian." 

Don  Silverio  was  silent. 

"  It  is  very  grave,"  he  said  at  last. 

"  Aye,  sir,  grave  indeed,"  said  Gianna.  "  Would 
that  it  were  love  between  them,  sir.  Love  is  sweet 
and  wholesome  and  kind,  but  there  is  no  such 
thing  in  Adone's  heart.  There  it  is  only,  alas! 
blackness  and  fire  and  hatred,  sir;  blood-lust 
against  those  who  mean  ill  to  the  river." 

"  And  his  mother  has  lost  all  influence  over 
him?" 


The  Waters  of  Edera  3 1 1 

"  All,  sir.  She  is  no  more  to  him  now  than  a 
bent  stick.  Yet,  months  ago,  she  gave  him  her 
pearls  and  her  bracelets,  and  he  sold  them  in  a 
distant  town  to  buy  weapons." 

"  Indeed  ?    What  madness !  " 

"  How  else  could  the  men  have  been  armed, 
sir?" 

"  Armed !  "  he  repeated.  "  And  of  what  use  is 
it  to  arm?  What  use  is  it  for  two  hundred  peas- 
ants to  struggle  against  the  whole  forces  of  the 
State?  They  will  rot  in  prison;  that  is  all  that 
they  will  do." 

"  Maybe  yes,  sir.  Maybe  no,"  said  the  old 
woman  with  the  obstinacy  of  ignorance.  "  Some 
one  must  begin.  They  have  no  right  to  take  the 
water  away,  sir;  no  more  right  than  to  take  the 
breast  from  the  babe." 

Then,  afraid  of  having  said  so  much,  she 
dropped  her  courtesy  and  went  out  into  the  street. 
But  in  another  moment  she  came  back  into  the 
study  with  a  scared,  blanched  face,  in  which  the 
wrinkles  were  scarred  deep  like  furrows  in  a  field. 

"  Sir — sir !  "  she  gasped,  "  there  are  the  sol- 
diery amongst  us." 

Don  Silverio  rose  in  haste,  put  the  little  dog  on 
his  armchair,  closed  the  door  of  his  study,  and 
went  down  the  narrow  stone  passage  which  parted 
his  bookroom  from  the  entrance.  The  lofty  door- 
way showed  him  the  stones  of  the  familiar  street, 
a  buttress  of  his  church,  a  great  branch  of  one  of 


3 1 2  The  Waters  of  Edera 

the  self-sown  ilex-trees,  the  glitter  of  the  arms  and 
the  white  leather  of  the  cross  belts  of  a  sentinel. 
The  shrill  lamentations  of  the  women  seemed  to 
rend  the  sunny  air.  He  shuddered  as  he  heard. 
Coming  up  the  street  farther  off  were  half  a  troop 
of  carabineers  and  a  score  of  dragoons ;  the  swords 
of  the  latter  were  drawn,  the  former  had  their 
carbines  levelled.  The  villagers,  screaming  with 
terror,  were  closing  their  doors  and  shutters  in 
frantic  haste ;  the  door  of  the  presbytery  alone  re- 
mained open.  Don  Silverio  went  into  the  middle 
of  the  road,  and  addressed  the  officer  who  headed 
the  carabineers. 

"  May  I  ask  to  what  my  parish  owes  this 
visit?" 

"  We  owe  no  answer  to  you,  reverend  sir,"  said 
the  lieutenant. 

The  people  were  sobbing  hysterically,  catching 
their  children  in  their  arms,  calling  to  the  Holy 
Mother  to  save  them,  kneeling  down  on  the  sharp 
stones  in  the  dust.  Their  priest  felt  ashamed  of 
them. 

"  My  people,"  he  called  to  them,  "  do  not  be 
afraid.  Do  not  hide  yourselves.  Do  not  kneel 
to  these  troopers.  We  have  done  no  wrong." 

"  I  forbid  you  to  address  the  crowd,"  said  the 
officer.  "  Get  you  back  into  your  house." 

"  What  is  my  offence  ?" 

"  You  will  learn  in  good  time,"  said  the  com- 
mandant, "  Get  you  into  your  presbytery." 


The  Waters  of  Edera  3 1 3 

"  My  place  is  with  my  people." 

The  officer,  impatient,  struck  him  on  the  chest 
with  the  pommel  of  his  sword. 

Two  carabineers  thrust  him  back  into  the  pas- 
sage. 

"  No  law  justifies  your  conduct,"  he  said  coldly, 
"  or  authorises  you  to  sever  me  from  my  flock." 

"  The  sabre  is  law  here,"  said  the  lieutenant  in 
command. 

"  It  is  the  only  law  known  anywhere  in  this 
kingdom,"  said  Don  Silverio. 

"  Arrest  him,"  said  the  officer.  "  He  is  creating 
disorder." 

The  carabineers  drove  him  into  his  study,  and 
a  brigadier  began  to  ransack  his  papers  and  draw- 
ers. 

He  said  nothing ;  the  seizure  of  his  manuscripts 
and  documents  were  indifferent  to  him,  for  there 
was  nothing  he  had  ever  written  which  would  not 
bear  the  fullest  light.  But  the  insolent  and  arbi- 
trary act  moved  him  to  keen  anxiety  because  it 
showed  that  the  military  men  had  licence  to  do 
their  worst,  at  their  will,  and  his  anguish  of  ap- 
prehension was  for  Adone.  He  could  only  hope 
and  pray  that  Adone  had  returned,  and  might  be 
found  tranquilly  at  work  in  the  fields  of  the  Terra 
Vergine.  But  his  fears  were  great.  Unless  more 
soldiery  were  patrolling  the  district  in  all  direc- 
tions it  was  little  likely,  he  thought,  that  these 
men  would  conduct  themselves  thus  in  Ruscino; 


314  The  Waters  of  Edera 

he  had  no  doubt  that  it  was  a  concerted  move- 
ment, directed  by  the  Prefect  and  the  general  com- 
manding the  garrisons  of  the  province,  and  in- 
tended to  net  in  one  haul  the  malcontents  of  the 
Vald'edera. 

From  his  study  there  was  no  view  upon  the 
street;  he  could  hear  the  wailing  of  women  and 
screaming  of  children  from  the  now  closed  houses : 
that  was  all. 

"  What  is  it  your  men  do  to  my  people?  "  he 
said  sternly  to  the  lieutenant. 

The  young  man  did  not  reply ;  he  went  on  throw- 
ing papers  into  a  trunk. 

"  Where  is  your  warrant  for  this  search  ?  We 
are  not  in  a  state  of  siege  ?  "  asked  Don  Silverio. 

The  officer,  with  a  significant  gesture,  drew  his 
sabre  up  half  way  out  of  its  sheath ;  then  let  it  fall 
again  with  a  clash.  He  vouchsafed  no  other  an- 
swer. 

Some  women's  faces  pressed  in  at  the  grating 
of  the  window  which  looked  on  the  little  garden, 
scared,  blanched,  horrified,  the  white  head,  and 
sunburnt  features  of  Gianna  foremost. 

"  Reverendissimo !  "  they  screamed  as  with  one 
voice.  "  They  are  bringing  the  lads  in  from  the 
moors." 

And  Gianna  shrieked,  "Adone !  They  have  jgot 
Adone!" 

Don  Silverio  sprang  to  his  feet. 


The  Waters  of  Edera  315 

"  Adone !    Have  you  taken  Adone  Alba  ?  " 

"  The  ringleader !  By  Bacchus !  yes,"  cried  the 
brigadier,  with  a  laugh.  "  He  will  get  thirty  years 
at  the  galleys.  Your  flock  does  you  honour,  Rev- 
erendissimo ! " 

"  Let  me  go  to  my  flock,"  said  Don  Silverio ; 
and  some  tone  in  his  voice,  some  gesture  of  his 
hand,  had  an  authority  in  them  which  compelled 
the  young  man  to  let  him  pass  unopposed. 

He  went  down  the  stone  passage  to  the  archway 
of  the  open  door.  A  soldier  stood  sentinel  there. 
The  street  was  crowded  with  armed  men.  The 
air  was  full  of  a  hideous  clangour  and  clamour; 
above  all  rose  the  shrill  screams  of  the  women. 

"  No  one  passes,"  said  the  sentinel,  and  he  lev- 
elled the  mouth  of  his  musket  at  Don  Silverio's 
breast. 

"  I  pass,"  said  the  priest,  and  with  his  bare 
hand  he  grasped  the  barrel  of  the  musket  and 
forced  it  upward. 

"  I  rule  here,  in  the  name  of  God,"  he  said  in  a 
voice  which  rolled  down  the  street  with  majestic 
melody,  dominating  the  screams,  the  oaths,  the 
hell  of  evil  sound ;  and  he  went  down  the  steps  of 
his  house,  and  no  man  dared  lay  a  hand  on  him. 

Where  was  Adone? 

He  could  hear  the  trampling  of  horses  and  the 
jingling  of  spears  and  scabbards;  the  half  squad- 
ron who  had  beaten  the  moors  that  night  were 


3 1 6  The  Waters  of  Edera 

coming  up  the  street.  Half  a  battalion  of  soldiers 
of  the  line,  escorted  by  carabineers,  came  in  from 
the  country,  climbing  the  steep  street,  driving  be- 
fore them  a  rabble  of  young  men,  disarmed, 
wounded,  lame,  with  their  hands  tied  behind  them, 
the  remnant  of  those  who  had  met  at  the  tomb  of 
Asdrubal  in  the  night  just  passed.  They  had  been 
surprised,  seized,  surrounded  by  a  wall  of  steel; 
some  had  answered  to  their  leader's  call  and  had 
defended  themselves,  but  these  had  been  few; 
most  of  them  had  thrown  down  their  weapons  and 
begged  for  mercy  when  the  cold  steel  of  the  sol- 
diers was  at  their  throats.  Adone  had  fought  as 
though  the  shade  of  Asdrubal  had  passed  into 
him;  but  his  friends  had  failed  him;  his  enemies 
had  outnumbered  him  a  score  to  one ;  he  had  been 
overpowered,  -disarmed,  bound,  dragged  through 
his  native  heather  backward  and  upward  to  Rus- 
cino,  reaching  the  shadow  of  the  walls  as  the  sun 
rose. 

The  child  lay  dead  by  the  stagnant  pond,  and 
the  men  she  had  led  to  their  death  lay  choked  with 
the  weeds  and  the  slime;  but  of  that  he  knew 
naught. 

All  he  knew  was  that  his  cause  was  lost,  his  life 
forfeit,  his  last  hope  dead. 

Only  by  his  stature  and  his  bearing  could  he  be 
recognised.  His  features  were  black  from  powder 
and  gore;  his  right  arm  hung  broken  by  a  shot; 


The  Waters  of  Edera  317 

his  clothing  had  been  torn  off  him  to  his  waist; 
he  was  lame;  but  he  alone  still  bore  himself  erect 
as  he  came  on  up  the  village  street.  The  others 
were  huddled  together  in  a  fainting,  tottering, 
crazed  mob ;  all  were  sick  and  swooning  from  the 
long  march,  beaten  when  they  paused  by  belts  and 
the  flat  of  sabres. 

Don  Silverio  saw  that  sight  in  front  of  his 
church,  in  the  white,  clear  light  of  early  morning, 
and  on  the  air  there  was  a  sickly  stench  of  sweat, 
of  powder,  of  wounds,  of  dust. 

He  went  straight  to  the  side  of  Adone. 

"  My  son,  my  son !  I  will  come  with  you.  They 
cannot  refuse  me  that." 

But  the  soul  of  Adone  was  as  a  pit  in  which  a 
thousand  devils  strove  for  mastery.  There  was 
no  light  in  it,  no  conscience,  no  gratitude,  no  re- 
morse. 

"  Judas !  "  he  cried  aloud ;  and  there  was  foam 
on  his  lips  and  there  was  red  blood  in  his  eyes. 
"  Judas !  you  betrayed  us !  " 

Then  as  a  young  bull  lowers  his  horns  he  bent 
his  head  and  bit  through  and  through  to  the  bone 
the  wrist  of  the  soldier  who  held  him;  in  terror 
and  pain  the  man  shrieked  and  let  go  his  hold; 
Adone's  arms  were  bound  behind  him,  but  his 
limbs,  though  they  dripped  blood,  were  free. 

He  fronted  the  church,  and  that  breach  in  the 


3 1 8  The  Waters  of  Edera 

blocks  of  the  Etruscan  wall  through  which  Nerina 
had  taken  her  path  to  the  river  a  few  hours  before. 
He  knew  every  inch  of  the  descent.  Hundreds 
of  times  in  his  boyhood  had  he  run  along  the 
ruined  wall  and  leaped  from  block  to  block  of  the 
Cyclopean  huge  stones,  to  spring  with  joyous 
shouts  into  the  river  below. 

As  the  soldier  with  a  scream  of  agony  let  go  his 
hold,  he  broke  away  like  a  young  lion  released 
from  the  den.  Before  they  could  seize  him  he 
had  sprung  over  the  wall  and  was  tearing  down 
the  slope ;  the  soldiers  in  swift  pursuit  behind  him 
stumbled,  rolled  down  the  slippery  grass,  fell  over 
the  blocks  of  granite.  He,  sure  of  foot,  knowing 
the  way  from  childhood,  ran  down  it  safely, 
though  blood  poured  from  his  wounds  and  blinded 
his  sight,  and  a  sickness  like  the  swooning  of  death 
dulled  his  brain.  Beyond  him  and  behind  him  was 
the  river.  He  dashed  into  it  like  a  hunted  beast 
swimming  to  sanctuary;  he  ran  along  in  it  with 
its  brightness  and  coolness  rippling  against  his 
parched  throat.  He  stooped  and  kissed  it  for  the 
last  time. 

"  Take  me — save  me — comrade — brother — 
friend ! "  he  cried  aloud  to  it  with  his  last  breath 
of  life. 

Then  the  sky  grew  dark,  and  only  the  sound  of 
the  water  was  heard  in  his  ears.  By  the  bridge 


The  Waters  of  Edera  3 1 9 

its  depth  was  great,  and  the  current  was  strong 
under  the  shade  of  the  ruined  keep.  It  swept  his 
body  onward  to  the  sea. 

From  the  cornfields  under  the  olive-trees  his 
mother  saw  him  spring  to  that  last  embrace. 


XX 

IT  WAS  the  beginning  of  winter  when  Don  Sil- 
verio  Frascara,  having  been  put  upon  his  trial  and 
no  evidence  of  any  sort  having  been  adduced 
against  him,  was  declared  innocent  and  set  free, 
no  compensation  or  apology  being  offered  to  him. 

"  Were  it  only  military  law  it  had  been  easy 
enough  to  find  him  guilty,"  said  Senator  Giovac- 
chino  Gallo  to  the  Syndic  of  San  Beda,  and  the 
Count  Corradini  warmly  agreed  with  his  Excel- 
lency that  for  the  sake  of  law,  order,  and  public 
peace  it  would  be  well  could  the  military  tribunals 
be  always  substituted  for  the  civil;  but  alas!  the 
monarchy  was  not  yet  absolute  1 

He  had  been  detained  many  weeks  and  months 
at  the  city  by  the  sea,  where  the  trial  of  the  young 
men  of  the  Vald'edera  had  been  held  with  all  the 
prolonged,  tedious,  and  cruel  delays  common  to 
the  national  laws.  Great  efforts  had  been  made 
to  implicate  him  in  the  criminal  charges;  but  it 
had  been  found  impossible  to  verify  such  suspi- 
cions; every  witness  by  others,  and  every  action 
of  his  own,  proved  the  wisdom,  the  purity,  and 
the  excellence  in  counsel  and  example  of  his  whole 
320 


The  Waters  of  Edera  321 

life  at  Ruscino.  The  unhappy  youths  who  had 
been  taken  with  arms  in  their  hands  were  con- 
demned for  overt  rebellion  and  conspiracy  against 
authority,  and  were  sentenced,  some  to  four,  some 
to  seven,  some  to  ten,  and,  a  few  who  were  con- 
sidered the  ringleaders,  to  twenty-five  years  of 
cellular  confinement.  But  against  Don  Silverio 
it  was  found  impossible  even  to  make  out  the  sem- 
blance of  an  accusation,  the  testimony  even  of 
those  hostile  to  him  being  irresistibly  in  his  fa- 
vour in  all  ways.  He  had  done  his  utmost  to  de- 
fend the  poor  boys  and  men  who  had  been  misled 
by  Adone  to  their  own  undoing,  and  he  had  de- 
fended also  the  natives  and  the  character  of  the 
dead  with  an  eloquence  which  moved  to  tears  the 
public  who  heard  him,  and  touched  even  the  hearts 
of  stone  of  president  and  advocates;  and  he  had 
done  this  at  his  own  imminent  risk;  for  men  of 
law  can  never  be  brought  to  understand  that  com- 
prehension is  not  collusion,  as  that  pity  is  not  fel- 
lowship. But  all  his  efforts  failed  to  save  the 
young  men  from  the  utmost  rigour  of  the  law. 
It  even  declared  that  the  most  severe  example  was 
necessary  to  check  once  for  all  by  its  terrors  the 
tendency  of  the  common  people  to  resist  the  State 
and  its  public  works  and  decrees.  Useful  and  pa- 
triotic enterprises  must  not  be  impeded  or  wrecked 
because  ignorance  was  opposed  to  progress :  thus 
said  the  Public  Prosecutor  in  an  impassioned  ora- 


322  The  Waters  of  Edera 

tion  which  gained  for  him  eventually  emolument 
and  preferment.  The  rustics  were  sent  in  a  body 
to  the  penitentiaries;  and  Don  Silverio  was  per- 
mitted to  go  home. 

Cold  northern  winds  blew  from  the  upper  Apen- 
nines and  piled  the  snows  upon  the  marble  and 
granite  of  the  Abruzzi  as  he  descended  from  the 
hills  and  crossed  the  valley  of  the  Edera  towards 
Ruscino.  It  seemed  to  him  as  though  a  century  had 
passed  since  he  had  left  it.  In  the  icy  wind  which 
blew  from  the  snows  of  the  hills  below  the  Leo- 
nessa  he  shivered,  for  he  had  only  one  poor,  thin 
coat  to  cover  him.  His  strength,  naturally  great, 
had  given  way  under  the  mental  and  physical  suf- 
ferings of  the  last  six  months,  although  no  word 
of  lament  had  ever  escaped  him.  Like  all  gener- 
ous natures  he  rebuked  himself  for  the  sins  of 
others.  Incessantly  he  asked  himself — might  he 
not  have  saved  Adone? 

As  he  came  to  the  turn  in  the  road  which 
brought  him  within  sight  of  the  river,  he  sat  down 
on  a  stone  and  covered  his  eyes  with  his  hand.  He 
dreaded  what  his  eyes  should  see.  The  sacristan 
had  come  to  meet  him  bringing  the  little  dog, 
grown  thin,  and  sad,  and  old  with  sorrow. 

"I  did  all  I  could  for  him,  but  he  would  not  be 
consoled,"  murmured  the  old  man. 

From  this  point  he  had  reached  the  course  of 
the  Edera  and  the  lands  of  the  Terra  Vergine 


The  Waters  of  Edera  323 

were  visible,  he  knew.  With  an  effort,  like  one 
who  forces  his  will  to  look  on  a  dead  face,  he  un- 
covered his  eyes  and  looked  downward.  The 
olive-trees  were  still  standing;  where  the  house 
had  stood  was  a  black,  charred,  roofless  shell. 

"  Reverend,"  said  the  old  man  below  his  breath, 
"  when  she  knew  Adone  was  drowned  she  set  fire 
to  the  house,  and  so  perished.  They  say  she  had 
promised  her  son." 

"  I  know !  "  said  Don  Silverio. 

The  wind  from  the  north  swept  across  the  val- 
ley and  drove  the  water  of  the  Edera  in  yellow 
foam  and  black  eddies  through  the  dead  sedges. 
Above  Ruscino  the  acacia  thickets  were  down,  the 
water  was  choked  with  timber  and  iron  and  stone, 
the  heather  was  trampled  and  hacked,  the  sand 
and  gravel  were  piled  in  heaps,  the  naked  soil 
yawned  in  places  like  fresh-dug  graves ;  along  the 
southern  bank  were  laid  the  metals  of  a  light  rail- 
way; on  the  lines  of  it  were  some  empty  trucks 
filled  with  bricks;  the  wooden  huts  of  the  work- 
men covered  a  dreary,  dusty  space ;  the  water  was 
still  flowing,  but  on  all  the  scene  were  the  soil,  the 
disorder,  the  destruction,  the  vulgar  meanness  and 
disfigurement  which  accompany  modern  labour 
and  affront  like  a  coarse  bruise  on  the  gracious 
face  of  Nature. 

'  There  have  been  three  hundred  men  from  the 
Puglia  at  work,"  said  the  sacristan.  "  They  have 


324  The  Waters  of  Edera 

stopped  awhile  now  on  account  of  the  frost,  but 
as  soon  as  the  weather  opens " 

"  Enough,  enough!  "  murmured  Don  Silverio; 
and  he  rose,  and  holding  the  little  dog  in  his 
arms,  went  on  down  the  uncouth  familiar  road. 

"  His  body  has  never  been  found?  "  he  asked 
under  his  breath. 

The  old  man  shook  his  head. 

"  Nay,  sir ;  what  Edera  loves  it  keeps.  He 
dropped  where  he  knew  it  was  deepest." 

As  he  returned  up  the  village  street  there  was 
not  a  soul  to  give  him  greeting  except  old  Gianna, 
who  kneeled  weeping  at  his  feet.  The  people 
peered  out  of  their  doorways  and  casements,  but 
they  said  not  a  word  of  welcome.  The  memory 
of  Adone  was  an  idolatry  with  them,  and  Adone 
had  said  that  he  had  betrayed  them.  One  woman 
threw  a  stone  at  Signorino.  Don  Silverio  covered 
the  little  dog,  and  received  the  blow  on  his  own 
arm. 

"  For  twenty  years  I  have  had  no  thought  but  to 
serve  these,  my  people ! "  he  thought ;  but  he 
neither  rebuked  nor  reproached  them. 

The  women  as  he  passed  them  hissed  at  him : 
"Judas!  Judas!" 

One  man  alone  said :  "  Nay,  'tis  a  shame.  Have 
you  forgot  what  he  did  in  the  cholera?  'Tis  long 
ago,  but  still " 


The  Waters  of  Edera  325 

But  the  women  said,  "  He  betrayed  the  poor 
lads.  He  brought  the  soldiers.  He  sold  the  water." 

Then,  under  that  outrage,  his  manhood  and  his 
dignity  revived. 

He  drew  his  tall  form  erect,  and  passed  through 
them,  and  gave  them  his  blessing  as  he  passed. 

Then  he  went  within  his  church  and  remained 
there  alone. 

"  He  is  gone  to  pray  for  the  soul  of  Adone," 
said  the  sacristan. 

When  he  came  out  of  the  church  and  entered 
his  house,  the  street  was  empty;  the  people  were 
afraid  of  what  they  had  done  and  of  their  own 
ingratitude.  He  crossed  the  threshold  of  the  pres- 
bytery. The  sere  vine  veiled  his  study  casement ; 
in  the  silence  he  could  hear  the  sound  of  the  Edera 
water;  he  sat  down  at  his  familiar  table,  and 
leaned  his  arms  on  it,  his  head  on  his  arms.  His 
eyes  were  wet,  and  his  heart  was  sick ;  his  courage 
was  broken. 

"  How  shall  I  bear  my  life  here?  "  he  thought. 
All  which  had  made  it  of  value  and  lightened  its 
solitude  was  gone.  Even  his  people  had  turned 
against  him;  suspicious,  thankless,  hostile. 

The  old  sacristan,  standing  doubtful  and  timid 
at  the  entrance  of  the  chamber,  drew  near  and 
reverently  touched  his  arm. 

"  Sir — here  is  a  letter — it  came  three  days  ago." 


326  The  Waters  of  Edera 

Don  Silverio  stretched  out  his  hand  over  the 
little  dog's  head  and  took  it. 

He  changed  colour  as  he  saw  its  seal  and  super- 
scription. 

Rome  had  at  last  remembered  him  and  awak- 
ened to  his  value. 

At  the  last  Consistory  he  had  been  nominated 
to  the  Cardinalate. 


THE  END. 


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